Neighborhood
by FakeitTillYouTakeIt
Summary: While hunting a crime lord in Meatpacking district, Frank Castle crosses paths with a well-informed local who knows the city and its secrets; intelligent, unassuming, hidden away in a seafood store. In an attempt to gain information he develops a bond to her. Once wind hits that she's got a soldier on her side they're both up against the malefactors of Hell's Kitchen. Frank/OC
1. Introduction to Marine Biology

The smell of uncleaned bird cages stretched from the "Open" sign in the front to the dog kibble bags on the back wall. _Uric acid; waste filtered._ The food I usually get is 'bottom-shelf' in its purest form: I have to listen to the sound of my ankles popping when I kneel to grab it. Happy Chow only costs 82 cents a pound and it breaks up easy so the filters don't clog. Also I don't have a dog so taste isn't first priority. While I was knee-deep in the canine aisle I heard a pair of boots clonk around me, attended by a mumbled "s'cuse me, miss."

So, if I buy this I'll have about 6 bucks for some milk and pasta, which can take me to Thursday if I skip lunch. After I hoist the sunshine-hued bag up and walk towards the fish I can almost hear the other customer comparing brands behind me. New dog. People really buy in to the whole designer dog food trend so much that they pay 2.34 a pound for gluten-free cat-shaped cheerios. Or I'm just jealous because I'm broke and I don't have a dog.

Mike and Jeanie's store has about 10 different type of fish for sale and they're almost all domestic. Two exist naturally in the Amazon though, which makes no sense considering water from the Hudson, and consequentially New York, is basically acetone to them. There's three dead ones resting on the tank's bottom, blowing against the filter, pale green, while their friends congregate up above in a confusion of "who's next?"

When I get to the counter I see Mike talking to someone in a hushed tone, and Jeanie in the backroom with her hand on the phone, watching. From what I could tell his friend looks like he should be burning up considering the weather: black jacket, black jeans, black shoes. I smiled at Jeanie, and I saw her mouthing something in the background when I turned to the counter. "Hi Mike" I plop my yellow sack on the counter and grin at him, only to see his friend's large purple bag of Lifetime Canine fancy cheerioes, hidden by his looming coat. "Oh! I'm sorry." I cradle my bag again, looking up at him with an apologetic smile, only to be met with a resting scowl. I retreat and look down, taking a deep step back and waiting my turn. Jeanie's watching us with a firm awareness, her eyebrow's fixed so low it could replace the lid. I was bobbing my knee so I had something to focus on, and I wasn't sure what to do when Mike's guest gave me a glance and grabbed his bag with one hand, stepping aside. After switching my gaze back and forth between the two I made a move back to the counter. Mike finally met my eyes and tapped away at his pre-Y2K register.

"Fancy feast, huh Kell?" He chimed, brow glistening with sweat; it's the same line I get every time I drag my cheap sneakers across his 'Wipe Your Paws' welcome mat. "Har har. You know they don't care what it tastes like." I catch my words right as they pass my front teeth. _Incisors; from Latin incidere "to cut."_ Mike's friend casts a sour glance at me and I have to cover my ass so I don't look like a fur trapper. "Oh, I don't have a dog." His eyebrow twitches down and he shifts from the Happy Chow in my clammy hands to me. "No no, I buy this for the lobsters. It's, um, it's cheaper than fish food, and really anything else." He's still giving me a sideways glance so I go in for the overkill, intimidated and red-hot. "I say they don't care, because, you know, they're…" I cleared my throat and looked at Mike, trying to smear a smile across my face. "Work the system." Mike's joke offers me an escape, and I give him my second to last five dollar bill after telling him to keep the change so I can retreat as soon as possible. With my cheeks still on fire I sweep out the front door and into the humidity, my yellow bag crunching as I adjust. I look back just to make sure my bag didn't rip like last time and I see Mike's friend outside, looking my way. My hair clogged my vision, but I nodded back his way before cutting a right on Perry to get back home.

That night while I'm writing Steve's check I see someone else is dead in Meatpacking District: two men in their own apartment, five blocks away from me. I can imagine the city buzzing in a confusion of its own. 'Who's next?' I catch the imprint of the checks' numbers on my textbook and rub it mindlessly. 6 more sessions, 4,000 more dollars. Right as I endorse it I look up and see the white letters on the screen in allcaps. _PUNISHER._

 **NEXT WEEK**

The kibble takes a few minutes to get soggy before the lobsters can catch it. Since their pincers are wrapped up they have to wait for the food to float down, like chicken-byproduct manna from Heaven. _Chela: modified organ; Arthropoda._ I usually get customers to cut them on their own time, but the occasional touristy housewife will ask for a 'live demo,' which basically fucking sucks. They're the only thing I sell live and cutting them while they're still kicking is traumatic. I was dropping pellets in the tank when the bell rang against the glass on the front door. Thank God, money; maybe lunch isn't impossible after all. Three too-tall blondes sauntered in with dripping Styrofoam coolers, smiling shiteatingly at me. Well, nevermind.

Shtolen brothers, in all their German glory: they're my shipping client. I doubt they're involved in the actual fishing or shipping process, just the money-making and shit-talking side of it. "Hello Lynnie" Markus beamed, plopping the cooler at the front counter, some of the juice and ice water splashing on my textbook. "Jesus Moe you could have some decency." I flung the droplets off my page in haste, gingerly placing the book behind me as I grabbed my cash. "That's not my nickname, is it?" He said with a lilt, and I gave an empty hearted smile. "Oh of course! You are the three Shtooges. It fits." It's not my joke, actually. It's my sisters. She came up with it when she used to run front counter. She'd been memorizing her acronyms for an exam when they made a drop and came across SHT and OOG. Sarah's firecracker brain just made the connection; Moe gave her a black eye right across the counter afterwards and still overcharged us. _Systematic HyperTension; Ovarian Organs and Glands; Carver & Wright 1985 13ed. _

"Oh, Classic." Carl's turn to chime in, or 'Curly' rather. "So, do we have _all_ of it today?" Markus chortled at me after I handed him the cash, counting it with German precision. I opened the coolers and pulled out a flank of shipjack tuna, eyeing it just as accurately, but without the Aryan attitude. "Did you check the Mercury levels in these?" I asked, reaching for my indicator till the other one grabbed my forearm. Third stooge: I don't know his name because he's not wordy enough to need one. "They're fine, Lynn. Wild caught, farm fresh." Markus didn't even look up over my cash, and I jerked back. The angry blood whooshing in my ears prevented me from noticing the bell had rang a second time. Hot in the face and neck, I stabbed the tuna with the prong and watched it light up. "Those are two opposites, Markus. These tuna are worthless, I can't sell any of this." I pushed the cooler back over the counter and held my hand out for the cash, which he'd already folded and placed in his jacket pocket.

"That's not going to happen. We caught it, cut it and delivered it to you, Lynnie. You owe us for labor and handling. You're going to have to sell it and when we come back you're going to buy more. Understood?" Markus loomed over me, talking in a hushed voice, his hand reaching back to his belt loop. I stepped backwards, the tuna falling from my hands onto the counter, splashing blood and water onto my shirt, my apron ironically unscathed. The Shtooges giggled at this, and Markus brought his hands together in a clap. "Great doing business with you! See you in two weeks, give Uncle Steve my regards!" They walked out in a line like soldiers and I brought the wet coolers onto the other side, salvaging the useful meat and sliding open the ice shelves, defeated, again. The dirty ones could go on display, at least. My head was level with the glass case when an all-black ensemble appeared on the other side. I yanked my torso out of the shelves, grazing the crown of my head on the way out. _Calvaria; skull cap._

"Oh! Hell-o." I trailed off, seeing the same man from Mike and Jeanie's place, clad in the same sweat-inducing outfit from before. He didn't smile, but instead of staring villainously like the last time we'd semi-spoken he stared at the tank. "Those your dogs?" He nodded at the lobsters, and my mind buzzed for something to say. "Oh, yeah. They love some Happy Chow." I tried to laugh but saw he wasn't budging. I looked around the store for something to provoke a civil conversation, or rather make me less uneasy. "Are you…looking for something in particular?" My knuckles drummed on the counter before I remembered the tuna on it. I reached behind and grabbed a rag so I could at least keep myself productive-looking while he viewed the 20x20 store. "Yeah, you know who those guys were in here earlier?" He met my eyes head on and I felt my face reheat. Not in general social anxiety, not in a distrust of strangers. Just in real panic. A butterfly bandage peaked out from behind his jacket collar. With a deep breath I pulled back from the counter and glanced down at the 12-gauge just two feet under my textbook. People come in looking for names, information, trouble. Had that been what he was talking to Mike about? What had Jeanie so wary? I reminded myself that I knew how to do this. I watched Steve do it dozens of times, Sarah even did it before Emory. My back arched and I looked at him, deadpan. "Just my shippers. I buy their fish." I'm trying to hide my knee, bobbing furiously behind the counter.

His gaze didn't falter, and he looked around another time. "Okay, how about… tuna." He nodded at the fresh (albeit toxic) flanks and I gritted my teeth. He must have overheard us. "Uhm, yeah, that's" I walked up to the tuna and reached for it. Should I say no and risk going broke or say yes and poison someone? "That's actually not a very good batch. Sorry, just, um, faulty packaging." I retreated from the window and dared to meet his eyes. Surprisingly he just pursed his lips and nodded, looking around the store. "Are the lobsters faulty, too?" He said simply, and looked back, unexpectedly warm. I perked, and walked towards the aquarium tank. "Uh, no! No. They're perfect. Raised on dogfood and tap water." I attempted a laugh again and didn't feel as prickly when I looked back at him. I rolled up a sleeve and dipped my hand in the tank, fishing around for the lucky tribute. "You just reach in there and grab 'em?" He asked, watching the crustacean flail its segmented arms as I put it in a bag on ice. "Yeah, they're not as vicious as long as they're cold." I chuckled, a real smile, finally. When I looked back he was staring at me, and I wrapped the bag in a tiny knot, the ice moving slightly with the lobster. _Class Malacostraca._ "Do you…know how to cook them?" I added, finally comfortable enough to stop clearing my throat.

He looked at the bag that I handed to him, squirming in both of our palms. His eyebrows immediately furrowed and he made an unsure sound before snickering. I eagerly followed, maybe a little too eagerly. "You just, um, you put him in a pot of ice water and salt, and slowly heat it up to a boil. This way they sort of fall asleep." He stared at me again and seemed surprised at the information. "Didn't know there was a nice way of doing it." I laughed again, and he seemed to respond. "Yeah, you're not trying to punish them." Again, the words left my lips too fast, and he studied me with that scowl a second time. I took a step back and bobbed my knee. "So, it's um, it's 11 dollars." I didn't bother weighing it. I just wanted the awkwardness of my own creation to end. He broke eye contact and placed a 20 on the counter. "Keep the change." He turned to leave and paused a few feet from the door. "You know, I've got a question." He turned back and watched me again, and my belly went slick. When I said nothing, he approached the counter and placed his elbow on the glass, looking around once more. "What's your _real_ name? Guy at the pet store called you Kell, but the gymnasts back there called you Lynn. You just deal out a new one every time?" I looked down when I laughed. The Germans were pretty svelte, like douchy trapeze artists.

"No, uh my mom had two sisters named Kelly and Lynn, and she didn't want to hurt any feelings when she named me, so, Kellyn." I saw his eyes lighten a bit, and he chuckled silently, his head bobbing. " _Kellyn_." He said simply, and nodded, raising his bag of lobster to me. "So I know who to call if he attacks." He chimed, walking out of Steve's Seafood and west towards Greenwich. I stood behind the counter, grasping the soppy rag and moving it in mindless circles. I didn't learn his name; not that I could use that information in any way, but it would be nice to know I _can_ get someone's name, know people, maybe not people so iniquitous-looking, but still. I grab the textbook and place it back on my tuna-soaked counter and read some of Sarah's notes scribbled in the margin. _Carapace: modified cuticle; protective surface. Ex. Shrimp, crayfish, lobster._


	2. Sociology and Group Studies

I usually wake up twice a night, once if my neighbors keep it down. The people underneath me are surprisingly the loudest. It's a girl named Nina, she's young, works at a café, goes to night school. Her ex-boyfriend comes to her place after class and beats her. It's not the actual beating that keeps me up at night, just the hours she spends crying afterwards. There's the Italian couple on the top floor can barely feed themselves. I see the husband rummaging through dumpsters at night in the alleyway behind our complex. They owe money to someone, for something, and starve in an effort to keep their fingers unbroken. Mike and Jeanie live above their store down Bank Street, but they're not unaffected. There's a subclass of the mafia that smuggles exotic birds into the country in water bottles, and they periodically rob them for food and cages. Kind of like me and the Shtolens, except they haven't needed to shove a gun in my face yet. Polite robbery, how chivalrous.

The least tragic of all our tenants is the older woman next door. She never leaves her apartment, which is probably why she's free from all of our troubles. The only time I hear her voice is when she's getting her groceries delivered. Our interactions are simple but effective. If I'm stealthy enough I can open my window and listen to Trish Walker playing on her radio while she smokes menthol cigarettes. I like her.

Obviously I _want_ to help these people. You can't hear Nina's head collide with her refrigerator door right beneath you and think 'not my problem!' I just can't do anything about it. I've only been back in Hell's Kitchen for 6 months. Tack that on top of my 24 years living with Steve and Sarah and you've got an informant, a secret keeper of the borough. Not that I would do anything with this information. It's the same as the 17 old-edition college textbooks I have in my bookcase: you learn everything you can, and then it just…sits there in your brain, words and facts buzzing wildly around. Marine Biology, Psychology, Anatomy, Organic Chemistry, History, Medicinal Science, we could learn something about everything. Since me and Sarah were kids we would read them like they were story books (which we couldn't afford) and when we got older we studied them like they were our actual schoolbooks (which we also couldn't afford). I'm acting doom-and-gloom now, I should just get up.

Considering how depressing my apartment complex is, one would think I'd be avoiding the wide open danger of New York at night. I wrap up in my leather jacket and step out into the hallway, hungry, descending two flights of chubby stairs before cutting into the humid 3:00 air. _Psychometry: specific and_ _absolute._ It's times like this that I wish I had a dog to walk, or a car to drive, or a best friend stumbling home with after a night of drinking. Or Sarah. Or Steve. Doom-and-gloom again.

Something to take notice of is that walking more than a few blocks in either direction of my place guarantees passing by a nightclub. The one up north is in a warehouse, the west Greenwich club is underground, and the one I'm walking up to accurately looks like the gates of hell. Hookah and vapor cigarette smoke and red, pulsing light creeps from the doors onto the concrete outside, drunken scoundrels bubbling out like a pop-up children's book, which I've never actually seen, guess why?

I try to zip around it, but as I march across the eye of the open doors I can't help but look inside. There's a mass of bodies morphed together, moving in synchronized, inebriated steps. This is where Markus and his brothers' father hides out. I imagine him sitting on a throne in there, controlling crime with a few mafia, mob and gang delegates serving as council. In my mind he runs the entire Hudson. All the outside shipping goes through his piers, and _Viper_ is the feeding pit for his transactions. How do I know this? I see everyone, I see everything. I just do very little. Something Sarah's whip-like brain cranked out to me was that you can't live in fear, you can't be scared of those guys. You just need to be scared _enough_ so you don't do anything stupid. I am scared, though, so I guess it doesn't matter.

 **PERRY AND 7TH—FOUR FLOORS UP**

The muscles on my shoulder are raw and hot from being held stiff for so long. I've been on this roof straining my eyes through a scope for the past two hours. I'm still trying to get a shot of him but he's not coming out. One after one a sweatier and sloppier idiot fall out of the front doors and dissipate, but he's still in there. I can't barge in, not tonight. I need to get him off his turf, so I inhale and grip harder, the muscles searing.

The thermos next to me is asking to be drank from. My eyes burn if I close them for too long and all the skin that's not covered is sticky with fog. I flex my calf to remind my legs that I'm awake. Wait. I spare a second to blink hard and refocus, moving the rifle slightly to follow the sidewalk.

She's wearing a leather jacket in 97 degree weather and clutching it to her chest like it's winter. Yes, that's her. The one from the shop, the one with the seafood store. She's walking past the club like it's about to swallow her, eyeing it with severe caution. Does she know who's in there? Yes, that's her, I keep confirming in my mind, the muscle in my neck pulling taut as I continue moving the scope. If I squint hard enough I can almost see her freckles.

She disappears around the corner and I lift my head from the gun. Finally all of my joints rejoice, making a sound in my mind like a balloon being stretched. I take a few breaths, a swig of metal-tasting coffee, and I bend my sore neck again, glaring into the scope, finger on the trigger.


	3. Western Medicine: 1900s to Now

Every other Thursday at the shop goes pretty similar. Markus and his brothers file in and give me secondhand fish before they tease, then harass, then threaten me. Afterwards I hide behind the fridges for a while and scream, then I mopingly package the meat and kick a few bags of ice to cool down. Pun intended. Today though, my moping gets cut short when a few minutes later the troubleseeker strolls in, his black jacket hanging over his shoulders, big boots making oddly quiet steps for his size. I was deveining shrimp when the door's bell broadcasted his arrival, and the fear I'd felt the first time was slightly mixed with curiosity. Had he been following the Shtolen's? Was he still tracking them? I wanted to know motive, just let that information sit in my head. I pulled my flesh and waste covered hands out of the bowl of Crustacea and reached for a rag, taking a step closer to the counter, and also the shotgun.

"Hi." I shoot out, eyes wide, my hands so cold that I couldn't tell if they were clammy or not. He sees me first and seems uninterested with the store now. When he actually steps up to the counter I take a half step back, forcing myself to inhale through my nose so I can keep my heart rate down. _Tachycardia._ Now that he's in front of me I can tell he's gotten into a fight. The flesh near his cupids bow has been busted, and the bone on his left cheekbone is evidently bruised. "How was the lobster?" My voice comes out shaky, and I contemplate running out the back door. At least I'm brave enough to open my mouth. He sees me there, panicky, and offers an earnest smile. As earnest as a stranger can seem. Are we still strangers? Yes, I conclude, we haven't fully exchanged names.

"A little too fancy for me. The dog liked it, though." He smiles, showing teeth, and I feel less heavy. He hasn't threatened me. I'm not at gunpoint. Maybe I can survive this conversation. "I guess it comes full circle." I chuckle, it really is funny how my dog food-lobster has now literally become dog food, but the laughter is laced with apprehension. Every time we make eye contact I feel my neck flush red and I stare at the ceiling fan to seem less afraid. I have no poker face, no solid features, no daunting characteristics. My hair is auricomous and undulating. I have a Greek nose held between broad cheeks, dusted with juvenile freckles. My lips are roller-coaster and quiver easy. _Nothing_ about me provokes alarm, or demands respect or even tells others to stay back. I am an invitation for maltreatment and I can only imagine what this man could have in store. He places his hand on the counter, knuckles eggplant purple. My ears are on fire.

When he meets my eyes again I watch the wrinkles that form on his forehead. "So is this your family's place?" He asks, and I feel confused more than frightened. Is this small talk? I just whirred a possibility of bad endings to this encounter through my head and he just wants to chat? After a silence I find the courage to speak and look at him again. "Yeah, actually. My uncle." He nods, the corner of his mouth still up. "Let me guess…" He squints his eyes and lifts a finger to me. "Polish." I close my eyes when I snicker. He really is just making small talk; I shake my head in disbelief as much as protest. "No, um, Dutch." Steve and dad are actually Australian, but I look more like my mother, I think. I can't picture her face clearly in my mind. Also nobody would believe someone would come so far to live in Meatpacking. Trust me, they didn't either and they're the ones who actually did it.

He smiles again and nods, licking his lips. I'm still hot in the face but I think I can run another lap at this. "Dutch, in Meatpacking? I'd thought you'd gone extinct." He teases, and I smile, not like a primate, not in fear or threat, just because he's got a sense of humor and it's genuine. "It's not as easy as it seems to get out of here." No! That wasn't funny. He was being lighthearted and I ruined it. He picks up the slack, though, and nods to the bowl of pulverized, stringy shrimp that I had been working with, his eyebrows pulled together like a needle and thread. "What's this?" I go to it, picking up a shrimp and cutting it from its tail to the thick part of the translucent meat, lifting the guts out of the core and leaving a ravine. _Telson, abdomen, Malpighian tubes._

"It's just some shrimp. My shippers don't devein so I have to." I shake my head once and flick the string of waste in the trash next to me. Shit, Kellyn. I know he's thinking and I know what he's going to say. He's going to ask me about the brothers, about when they ship to me, who they know, what times they come. I know he's packing, he's got to be. Gun in my face, just as predicted. I'm scared again, adrenaline zig-zagging through my lymphatic system. Before he can ask a question about them I divert with a sharp and personal turn, something to distract. "My sister's doing her residency right now," I start, nonchalantly. "When we were kids she'd practice her stitches on the shrimp after deveining them; just sew them right back up and put them on the ice." I wrapped a few that I had cleaned in a small ice bag and handed it to him. I was trying to avoid any of his questions about the brothers, and buy his silence with tiny, wet prawns.

When he takes the bag and looks at me with a quizzical face, I nod towards him, my eyes on his bruised cheek. "There's vitamins in shrimp that, uh, help to heal…" I trail off, circling a finger around the right lobe of my face, offering a slight smile. _Selenium._ He holds the bag in his massive hands, scraped fingers wrapping around the ice. "As long as it doesn't jump out of the pot." He smiles, bigger, white teeth visible again. And I smile back. Here I am, laughing, smiling, at someone I know could reach across this counter and snap me. He looks like he wants to say something; ask me about those brothers again, maybe. He knows that I know something valuable, but instead he looks up and pulls a crisp twenty out of his pocket and places it on the display case. "Thank you ma'am." He struts towards the door, and I want to ask for his name but I also want to retreat into my store and breathe deep. Instead I just smile and watch him leave, heading for Greenwich.

When I'm home, reading a glossary from a history textbook, I hear something on the television. Steve has a late century TV that someone was throwing out when the LCD/Plasma/Kryptonite trend blew up, and he placed a foil prong on the top so that we could receive the news and gameshow cable channels. It's got a blown bulb in the bottom left corner, so the words on the screen read from white to purple as they scroll a headline. I drop the book out of my hands when the sound registers, my fingers wrapped around the ripped page I was holding. 'There has been a shooting at Metro General.' 'The hospital has been evacuated.' _Steve._

I jump to my feet and run, barefoot, no bra, down the stairs and across the street to the phone booth, cramming my breakfast money into the coin slot and calling the chemo wing. "Is he okay?! Is he alright?! Where is he?!" I'm crying into the speaker while the nurse reads off a list of relocated patients, finally getting to "Condon", before she coos that he's fine, and that he's been moved to a hospital uptown until they repair the damages, and that it's going to be okay, but by then I've already dropped the phone, and I've slid down the booth's walls into a heap on the floor, sobbing, the phone above me like a swinging pendulum.


	4. Beginner's Calculus

When Steve got cancer he called me during his supper. He said he didn't want to lose his appetite calling me so he got a few bites of grilled salmon in before he dialed my number. He told me Sarah already knew, and that mom and her side of the family wouldn't care. I'm used to being the last one to hear about things. I don't like it, but I'm used to it. Weddings, pregnancies, divorce, but death was something I'd be fine never knowing about. He had insurance, the shitty kind, but he wasn't going to lay down and die without a fight. They really caught it just at the right time. You could either let it kill you, or let chemo try to.

His grandfather served in ANZAC, and fought in the First World War. His father fought in the Battle of Cape Matapan, and he was stationed in Vietnam till 1971 when he lost his best friend in the Battle of Long Khanh. My dad, a baseball prodigy, had been too young to serve, so his parents reasoned at least one kid was bound to survive. This is why Sarah and I were such a jackpot in a neighborhood like Hell's Kitchen. One's bound to make it out! But immigration made my dad and brother poor, so Hell's Kitchen was the best, and only, option. When he met the Kinsey triplets in Meatpacking he thought he'd struck actual gold. They lived in the same complex and Carol, my future mother, would walk with him to the mailboxes every afternoon. (When Steve tells this story he leaves out the fighting and yelling and cheating. He never said my dad drank before he beat her and my mom left town with a chef instead of just asking for a regular divorce.) They were both secretly angry, shitty people. The story sounds better when they're old-fashioned baby boomers. Who would've thought the war-battered uncle would be the best parent out of the batch? Steve was the real gold. Me and Sarah were lucky to have him.

So Kelly and Lynn buy hopeful college textbooks for me and Sarah before they ditch the kitch in 91', and dad's liver gives out just in time for Sarah to decide she wanted to be a doctor. She's smart as a whip, too, so she got a scholarship at Emory and moved to Atlanta in 13'. She's married now, and didn't waste any time, but I know she's trying to nest somewhere better than here. That leaves me and Steve and the store.

 _I_ tried to leave Meatpacking when I turned 22. I lived with a stranger, worked at a bar dealing blackjack for people with illegal money, and played life appropriately for my age: fast and hard and full of "fuck yous". In the summer a Brit in a royal purple suit came and convinced the head honcho to smash his brains against the bartop, though, so the job fell through. _Hypnosis; origins in Animal Magnetism._ Then Steve calls me during his 6:00 dinner and I realize I have nowhere to go and he has no one to go to, so I wind up back at the seafood shop and he winds up at Metro-General full-time.

I'll say in confidence that I did what I believed would help get us out of New York. I took the old college textbooks our aunts left us, moved into Steve's place upstairs, and I'm trying to fix this. I figured if I learned enough material I could get into the fishing business. _Oceanography._ Start at the bay and work my way up. Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, hell New Brunswick if I get far enough.

I have to get out of here as soon as possible. Being back in this place puts rocks in my stomach. The constant turning around, the running across alleys, the fear of someone being right behind you. That's what I feel when the Schtolen brothers cartwheel into the shop, how Markus leans in an inch closer every time he takes my money, when he mentions Steve like he knows he can't protect us anymore, when he notes the locks on my door just to watch my face heat up. I know what I know about protecting myself, that's why we kept all of dad's bats. But they know way more about getting what they want, and they're skilled in keeping people afraid. Exhibit A.

In a desperate attempt to secure some kind of future where I'm not scared to walk home from a pet store by myself, I decide to ask for help. I know a lot of people in this town, I have information that's valuable, but I don't have any friends. I don't trust anyone, and I would assume nobody trusts me.

With the hospital shooting and Steve having to be moved for the next few weeks, I cultivate a thought that I _have_ to tell someone who can make a difference. I know about the Daredevil, Steve said he had saw him on the rooftops on Bank (this could have been a chemo-dream), but there's no hotline, there's no way to just find vigilantes, so instead I perk up in anticipation when the man in black comes back to the store asking for something 'without a tail.'

After a conversation about his dog and its fancy diet I wrap him a filet of salmon and give a recipe for a rub to cook it with. To top it off I tell him that the Schtolen brothers operate at Pier 82 near West 46th, if he still wanted to know, because judging by the bruise on his jaw and the bloody scabs on the side of his head he has no problem getting into trouble. When he says thank you he adds a 'ma'am', and uses my name, my full name, free of porny variation. And I finally get his. **Frank**.

 **PERRY STREET**

She's standing stick-straight when I walk in the door, and when I'm halfway to the counter she tries to smile at me, eyes wide like a child. She's shaken, and I can see her chest burning up the closer I get, clavicles dotted with those freckles. Each time I see her she's got her guard up, standing behind the counter, keeping close to the gun behind it. I can tell it's there, every time I make a sudden movement she flinches towards it, eyes on me. But when I look at her she's got her eyes on the ceiling, or her apron, or the knife she's cutting meat with. But today she's different. She's not as scared as she is aware. She brings up my dog and the dog food and the shrimp and I realize she's actually having a conversation with me. She's less skittish, more forward. I tell her I'll eat anything without legs or a tail.

Jesus, I don't know half the stuff she's selling in this shop. It's all a hue of pink or grey or tan, and I don't have the heart to tell her I can't cook worth shit. But when she reaches her hands into the ice and grabs a hunk of whatever I just watch her move. A bright red square of salmon's in my hands now and she's telling me to rub pepper and lemon shit on it, so I nod and watch her, seeing her vision drift over the store, ears bright pink. I smile, I can't be that scary. But guess I can. When she's quiet for a minute I look up and see her staring right at me, eyes focused, her hands on the counter. I can tell she's going to speak, there are words right inside her lips. "Those brothers," She starts, and then inhales, glancing out the window, hesitant. I take a step forward, almost chucking the fish meat out of my hands. Yes, finally, keep going.

"They're Shtolens. They ship out of Pier 82, by 46th. Usually Wednesdays. It's them and about five other guys on top of labor. If you were still interested." She says the words so fast I almost don't hear them. I watch her mouth move and realize she's asking me something. Her eye's squint slightly when I shake my head, coming up to speed.

"What's your name?" She asks like I wouldn't know it myself, and I figure, fuck it, I'm not hiding under a mask. "Frank." I see her regarding me as a human now, studying me, ignoring the gun under the counter. She nods and looks down, and when I thank her and say her name she looks so surprised. Small smile, warm. I walk out into the rain and head west, counting in my head how much ammo I have.


	5. Criminological Theory

There are a few things that really, really scare me. I'm not naturally skittish, or anxious or edgy. These are all learned behaviors, taught to me by my surroundings and experiences. I'd like to think I could be really laid back, _chill_ even, had I grown up somewhere else like Tribeca, or even Chelsea. But I'm here, and the thing that makes the pit in my stomach throb like a cancerous ulcer is Markus and his lackeys. When I'm writing Steve's check and I see his towhead encroach the walls of my store I want to run, far far away. He's like a fervent dog, though, and if he sees a rabbit running he'll only want to chase it down. So I hold my ground, forlorn. His presence today proves that my leak of information to Frankhas done nothing good, and that I may have caused his death. The pen in my hand bumps against the check like a seismogram.

But something's different today. They don't elephant-walk into the store as high and mighty as usual. Their attitude isn't what I notice first though, it's how many are here. Markus and Carl, sans third brother, carry in two large coolers of catfish and anchovies (worst sellers that usually end up being my dinner after they've expired) with scowls, and the bags under their eyes make them look more like people and less like Fürst. "Lynn." He barely regards me, setting the cooler down and waiting for my cash. I play along, watching them closely as I lay out the money. He grabs it without teasing and counts it in seconds, shoving it in his pocket. He's not taunting me, he's not enjoying this. He's not even folding the bills. As grateful as I am for the freedom I make a slight push, trying to gauge the status of my acquaintance without revealing anything. I casually inquire while I'm peering at the fish. "So where's number three today?"

In a trigger movement Markus has his hand on my throat, the curve of his thumb and forefinger pushing under my jaw. He's looking at me now and I see his eyes are inflamed, and there's dried blood on the inside of his ear. "What the fuck did you say?" He looms over the counter, the alcohol in his breath mixing with the smell of fish next to us. "I'msorryI'msorryIdidn'tmeananything—" I squeeze frantic hot words through my teeth, trying to pull away and get him off of me and get to the fucking gun.

"His name is Abel you stupid fucking bitch" warm spit sprays onto my face and I grab his wrist trying to pull away. "Get off!" I grunt, my eyes turgid and snapped shut, tears seeping. _Lacrimal gland._ The next thing I hear is a click against my diaphragm, and when I open my eyes Carl's got a handgun pressed to me. I'm frozen now, all of my real, real fears coming to fruition in the span of 60 seconds. "You say anything about us? About my brother? You tell anybody?" He yells in my face, rubicund, and I think this is really it, my last day in the Kitchen. "No!" I cry, my tears pooling on the curve of his hand. _1_ _st_ _Dorsal Interossei._ He snarls, and then shoves me, hard. I knock into the wall skull first, my head spinning back and forth in reverb.

Markus steps back and runs a hand through his hair, looking out the glass windows, composure regained full swing. "You know Lynnie, we see you," he laughs, humorlessly. "We know where you live, who you talk to, where Steve's taking his vacation" he says in a flat tone while I shake violently against the wall, knees at the brink of giving way. "I'd hate to lose such a loyal client over a big mouth." He winks, gives me an empty once over, and walks out of the store after knocking the cooler off the counter, meat and water spilling out onto the checkered tile floor.

When I'm sure they're gone I crumple to the floor, heaving breath like I'm stealing it from someone else, hands wiping my face and neck, damp with tears. I sat there for an hour, my mind lost for words, all my thoughts knocked out when I hit the wall. I touch the crown of my head and feel it's been busted a few millimeters, orangey blood on my fingertips, already clotted and knotted in my hair. After I slop up the fish and mop the floor without clean water I take the gun with me when I walk home. My hair is tangled and thick from the humidity, and it sticks to my neck like a warm leech when crane it up at the apartment complex a block from mine. It's a 15 story building that oversees the borough, all brick, a Thomasson of 40's architecture. I close my eyes when I inhale, sclera still swollen, I and decide it's better than going home to my possible death bed.

I creep to the side of the building and hide the gun under a pile of trash, taking my jacket off and rolling up my sleeves to free any necessary limbs. The emergency staircase serrates up the wall, and I have to bend low before I jump, my ankles popping beneath me. I shoot up, barely hooking the ladder, my arms burning instantly. I swing and grab the second rung, my feet scraping against the brick to gain leverage. After an awkward few seconds of climbing I make it to the first terrace. The staircase is shut, so I have to scale the balconies until the 7th floor, and by the time I make it to the roof my shirt's actually wet from the sweat and humidity.

But there it is: New York. It really is, in a word, stunning. Not necessarily beautiful, or ugly, but noticed. It demands to be seen, to be remarked. When you're staring at all of the aircraft warning lights and twinkling beacons of the city you can convince yourself that you don't need the stars. As the night moves and the world around you seems to scintillate, you can push the heavy bulk of what's happened backwards. I breathe once to remind myself that I can, and a second to tell myself to keep doing it. I have lived life day by day thinking "this could be it." Walking past an alleyway, opening the shop, locking my door at night, each action is linked to the chance that it could be my last. Living in this place has formed mine and others' entire existence around survival. There is no comfort, only exhaustion from the constant adrenal rush and fatigue. _Epinephrine; C 9H13NO3._

I force my brain to stop running downhill and sit on the ledge of the building, legs swinging idly over the edge. I just need a moment to enjoy this, to simulate comfort. I imagine at the southern tip of Manhattan a tall green woman is standing, light in her hand, taking no shit from the miscreants in her home. I can peer out at the surrounding rooftops and try to place her among the roof-access booths and AC units. Off in the distance I see someone else looking over the city-giving it its attention. Just a tiny black shadow from this point, I know, but I hope it's him. I hope he survived.


	6. Landforms and Human Geography

Today Steve got back to Metro General and I ran out of stamps to mail his checks with, so I figured I could close the shop for a while and visit him, not that I wanted to go back to the store at all. I can give all the moody excuses that people come up with not to visit family in the hospital. It smells bad, there's dead people there, I don't like being surrounded by illness. My only excuse is that I barely have ten dollars a week to spend on food, so a 3.35$ subway pass is a rare purchase, but if Claire's there she'll give me a few stamps from the mailroom, so I figure I can spare a meal and see my uncle.

Metro General, unsurprisingly, is more of a glorified emergency room than a hospital. Surgeries are cancelled daily to aid gunshot wounds, stabbings, and head traumas. When I arrive I have to beep through a metal detector and walk around a waiting room full of crying and frantic phone conversations. The chemo wing is an antithesis to this. It's dead (poor wording) quiet, with patients hooked up to pods they're connected to by beeping monitors, wire and IV. Steve is a fan of spontaneity, so he contradicts the scheduled sessions of therapy by sitting in a new seat each time. I have to scan the varying stages of balding to find his olive head looking out the window at pedestrians below us. "Steve!" I deposit my check and shuffle to him cumbersomely in an effort not to disturb the twenty or so other people being kindly poisoned.

Steve in chemo is to the Chemo wing as real Steve is to the ER: a complete reversal. He is hairy and dark and burly; his chest, face and arms are swept with a forest of thick black curls. In chemo it is all lost, and he compensates with loud, macho behavior, ratifying the Aussie typecast. When he hugs me he laughs aloud and pats my back as hard as he can, making loud claps against my shoulder blade. _Scapula-thoracic cage._ It still hurts. That's how I know he's doing better.

I don't tell him anything about the Shtolens, and instead I talk about Sarah and dad, happy memories. I pretend we've kept in touch and that I'm about to find work outside of the Kitchen, something upwards of impossible, but it makes him grin wide, so I stick with it. When his session's over I wheel him to his room like I'm on a grocery cart, one foot on the rack underneath his seat, the other pushing us in big swoops. I've never actually needed a cart for myself, but the deli near Steve's has a lot of family traffic, so I watch them. He's howling in cheer and it's drug-like, I keep doing what I can to get another fix, to know one of us is happy and safe and _good_. After Claire sneaks me ten stamps and helps another nurse sit him up in bed we play cards while the television runs in the background.

"It must feel good to have more than two channels on your TV, huh?" I lay an ace down and he laughs, picking a grape off his lunch plate and popping it in his mouth before slapping a two on the table. "Yeah, you can also read the news without feeling like you have uv, uve… whatever it's called." He chuckles, and I laugh loudly. I don't know when I'm going to have a good laugh again, so I'm overcompensating each giggle, emphasizing every note. For each smile I indemnify a laugh, and for each laugh I remit an excessive cackle. "Uveitis. You were close." He actually wasn't thinking of the right thing, but I didn't give a shit. If he wanted to have a tea party and play Captain America I would add milk and sugar without reluctance. Instead we just watched the news because it's all we knew.

He's remembering things though, even random bits of information are good. Chemo hit him hard with bouts of disorientation and vertigo. The staff won't say it to your face, especially if you're on the verge of collapse, but they call it 'chemo brain.' Them I will correct. _It's Chemotherapy-Related Cognitive Impairment, bitch._ I couldn't be shushed and cooed and given warm soda to pacify. Seeing him try to focus on me while his words slurred and his irises danced violently was unnerving. _Nystagmus; extraocular muscles._ It broke him early so that he could build a tolerance (this is how he describes it. Obviously I did not inherit his tenacious optimism, nor his story-telling skills).

When I realize I'm losing the game I start to review my cards again, the only source of color in the entire room. His wrist has a white laminated bracelet that glints in the light of the buzzing lights above us. Ah, I see. That's why people hate hospitals so much, it's not as much the disease as it is the sterility.

"Are you ready to be uncomfortable?" He asks, and I look up, smiling way too big. "What?" I laugh, and he looks out of the door's vertical mirror as a nurse walks by before leaning in. "You know how people have prison wives?" He asks, and I nod slowly, hooked, hanging on his thread. He does this. "Well I have a hospital wife. She teaches the residents and I'm the class pet. She _loves_ me." I lower my head in amusement and place my hand against my forehead, cards fanning out. "I'm proud of you." We continue to play, the noise of the plastic covering on the cards clicking against his bedside tray fill the silence in the room.

I'm only brought back when Steve stops playing, his hands holding his cards in a tableau. I glance at him and see he's looking past me, up at the television. I turn with him to see that he's watching and observe a red BREAKING NEWS headline with white lettering:

 _SUSPECTED MOB MEMBERS MURDERED TUESDAY EVENING: PUNISHER TO BLAME?_

I watch the reporter list off facts about the kill, and I find myself completely facing the TV now, the card game forgotten, transfixed as they detail unnamed victims and their alleged involvement with Hell's Kitchen's organized crime. "You know he's the guy who went postal in here? Shot up the entire intensive care looking for one of the Irish. He's wiping the city clean one scumbag at a time" Steve says, and I can't decipher whether he admires or detests him. I'm still fixed on the TV, looking for any details about the suspect. "Huh" I make an interested sound but we both know I'm not paying attention. "Have you seen him?" Steve asks after a pause, and I finally turn back. "What?" I ask, and he moves his eyes from the screen to me. "They say he's working out of Meatpacking and Hudson Yards. People are dying all over Hell's Kitchen, gangs, murderers, rapists." I squint my eyes, trying to scan him for signs of hysteria. "Who's they? Your hospital wife and children?"

He shakes his head feverishly and it tells me he's not being facetious. "I'm serious Elly. That guy's real, and he's in _our_ neighborhood. He's hunting those people down." He looks like he's thinking, and puts his cards down. I push mine to the side. "I want you to start closing the shop while it's light out. I can't be in here knowing you're by yourself." I shake my head, turning back, hands up in protest. "No, no, I'm fine. I've been doing fine by myself. I've got the sluggers at home and the gun at the store. We don't need to lose any more money. Look at you, you're almost all done here! You're gonna come home soon." I lied about the gun, and the being okay part, but I can't get him worked up after a meal or he won't keep it down. He's upset, shaking his head in small swings. I place my hands on his and move my head to try to catch his eyes. "Steve. Steve." He looks at me and I know I'm talking to chemo Steve now. His eyes are glazed and pink and he's gripping my hands, the macho overlay gone. "You know I just want to get you out of here, kid. I just want you to be safe." He whispers, and I reach over the bed to hold him. "I am safe. If he's doing what you say he is then—"

" _We have a Daily Bugle representative at the crime scene right now. Lance, can you tell us what the police have revealed?"_

Me and Steve part and both stare at the screen, angst blanketing our tender moment. A young man in gingham is holding an umbrella and microphone, standing next a loading dock, his glasses getting foggy as he speaks. It's Pier 59 Studios, I can tell by the ships parked against the concrete landing.

" _Yes Michelle, I'm here just outside Pier 57, where a_ massacre _occurred last night. At least 6 bodies have been recovered and there were several injured in the process. As you can see, Michelle, this ship arrived last night carrying almost 20 units of illegal drugs, military-grade weapons, and high amounts of hazardous chemicals shipped from overseas. A shootout occurred sometime around 4:00 yesterday morning at the pier, and there were no witnesses who could point to a suspect. I'll tell you, Michelle, this has a lot of people on their toes."_

I stand from the chair, taking a step towards the TV, my arms crossed over my chest, eyebrows woven together like a silk suture. Name, say a name. Steve watches behind me, his face in the same twist.

" _That's for sure, Lance. Have the police revealed any of the victim's identities to the public yet? Does this look like the work of the Punisher?"_

"Pier 57, isn't that where the—" I shush him, then apologize. The reporter's on screen again, wiping the lens of his glasses, emphasizing every few words and speaking in an Ivy League cadence.

" _I'll tell you, Michelle, the police are keeping this under very tight wraps. They're not speaking to the media or any journalists at the moment about who they suspect is behind this murder, but it seems like the same pattern we've been seeing all month. Police_ have _however confirmed that the only body that could be_ properly _identified was Abel Shtolen—"_

My heart and breath slow, like I've entered a state of hibernation. _Bradyarrythmia, bradypnea._ My hands are gripping my arms like railing and the hair follicles on my armpits stand straight out, adrenaline widening my blood vessels, my heart thumping in my ears. Steve exits chemo-mode on command, and finds the strength to sit up in his bed by himself. "Oh, shit."

When he finally gets my attention he studies me, concerned. "Elly? Are you okay?" I nod automatically, giving me away. My mouth is cottonball dry and when I speak my voice is so far away that I have to push the words out of my lungs. "I'm afraid… I'm, I'm afraid but I don't know what to be afraid of." I muster, and I sit on the bed, hand tremoring with nerves. Steve sits with me, both of us tired, our bodies betraying us, wasting our resources on stress. Before I fall asleep on the chair next to his bed he crosses his hands over each other and rests them on his stomach, "then don't be afraid." He changes the channel to the soap operas.

 **4:30 A.M. LAST NIGHT**

 **11** **th** **AND 14** **th** **STREET—18 FLOORS UP**

Ten, ten and labor. That's how many I see inside the crosshairs. Two Polish, Two Irish, three hired guns. And the three Germans on top. While workers unload the TEUs they do a line of blow off a case of champagne before cracking it open. The tall one's coked out of his mind, shouting at the teenagers unloading his shit, roaring in laughter. They're just kids, came over with the boat, Mexican. I take in a deep breath and hold, counting the beats. I stand straight as possible, finger rubbing the trigger up and down. Go. Once the labor's out of the shot I make the first strikes, both Poles and an Irish down in a split second. I aim at the guns before they can find me and knock them down. The other Irishman after that. The labor's off the pier by now, running, scattered into the city.

Big brother screams his head off, hiding behind a unit while the real big one's got his piece out, unloading it into the sky, trying to find something to shoot. I look back into the scope. One shot, done. When he hits the ground the firstborn screams, peeking out from the unit to see him painting the deck. I aim at him and shoot, clipping the corner of the container. Fuck. They'll be gone by the time I get down there. I keep unloading, but he and the baby are hiding behind, shrieking like Goddamn monkeys. If I listen closely I can hear him offer me money, and when I keep shooting he starts to shout out that I'm a dead man. "Good to know." When the police radio catches wind of it I'm already gone, tacking one off the list.

The night after I come back. When I look over the pier I can tell it's been roped off, yellow tape and folded evidence tents littering the deck. Nothing on the radio, though, the last two are still out, still on my turf. The thermos is nestled next to the ledge where I left it. I take a gulp of cold coffee and scrunch: still good. Police were too stiff to check up here, I guess.

I look out over the Hudson and inhale, ribs aching when my lungs expand, muscles in a fit of unrest. I can smell the roving water, journeyed from Adirondack, on its way down to the Upper Bay and into the Atlantic. New York's own river. From where I'm standing I can see where Holland Tunnel comes out from under the water, where New Jersey cuts the river right down the middle, glowing a little less bright on the other side. Right behind me is Queens, the Bronx above, and Brooklyn below. If I had the telescope I might be able to see the Lady from here, facing Kings County, law in her arms. This place was home, once. I grew up in Hattan, I started a family here. I know it from the belly up.

I down the stale coffee and sit on the ledge, staring out at the city. She's a looker, for sure. Always on, always up. 'New Amsterdam,' I think that's what the Dutch called it way back. I look off in the direction of Meatpacking, the lights in the district yellowed and warm. There's one quick way to find those boys. They're not skipping town. No, they're going back to daddy and trying to save face, keep the reputation. I know the first place they're gonna go, the first person they're gonna go after. I swirl the cap shut on the thermos and get out of the building before anyone else shows up.

I decide to set up across the street, fresh coffee in the aluminum, two shots in the barrel: all I needed. I fixed the bipod to rest on the ledge so that I can dial the focus on the green and white sign above the store, and I realize I'm hungry. Jesus, when was the last time I ate? I burn my throat and stomach on hot coffee so it'll shut up and press my knees back, locking into place. I regret giving the dog the rest of the fish now. Wasn't half bad. I wonder where she's out this time of night.

Clearly I know where she _lives_. I followed her home once thinking I could find dirt on the Germans. This was before I realized she had the whole district on tabs. That was the day I knocked a pawner's teeth out for offering me kiddie porn. I'd just ended up in front of her store afterwards, three blocks in the wrong direction. I wanted to check, just make sure. After she closed I tailed her back to the shanty apartment she stays at. She can't even afford blinds—I watched her read in the glow of a TV, looking at her door every once in a while, just like at the store, waiting for someone to jump. I squinted like it would help me see her better.

When I got back to the garage I'd been squatting in I unwrapped the curly grey fish she'd given me and cooked it on a gas flame and tin tray, Eagle Scout style. It tasted like wet chicken, so I ate a few for the sake of keeping me up and gave the rest to the dog. When he coughed up our meal a second time I realized I couldn't buy anything with legs again, but it gave me a reason to go back.

I open my eyes and realize my socket is pressed into the scope and the bipod legs are holding me up. I'd fallen asleep. "Fuck." I rub my eye to get my sight back, swirls and dots of white peppering my vision. I chug the coffee, no longer steaming but still hot, and I shake my head, loosening my shoulders. The watch says it's 0512, almost magic hour. It's after I get the focus on the scope just right that I hear a scream two buildings down.


	7. War and Enslavement in America

I wake up in the blinking light of the television, sweaty, my back bent in an uncooperative angle and my neck twisted to the left. When I straighten out my entire top-half is sore, joints popping and twisting in sharp pains. I freeze when I realize I've fallen asleep, Steve snoring next to me in his angled hospital bed, finally rested. I look at the watch in his personal belongings bag: 4:05 A.M. I guess my internal clock has evolved around my neighbors' schedules. I stand up and stretch, trying to lean without making noise. If he wakes up he'll try to make me stay, keep his joints moving longer, denying his cells time to recover from the poison.

I grab my book and tiptoe out of his room, counting the change in my pocket that can possibly get me home. The hospital's slower this time of night, lights lowered, nurses sessile and nestled in desks. I exit the chemo wing and walk through the constant buzz of the waiting room, still full of quick phone calls and anxiety. When I left the hospital the roads were wet and puddled. I didn't know it was going to rain; my sneakers were already wet after walking one block to the subway entrance, squishing water between my toes every time I stepped farther down into the tunnel.

When I got to the gate I grabbed my handful of coins and a crumpled dollar bill and counted it a second time, pushing the change around my palm. I was 52 cents short, of course. I looked around the entrance, trying to find a person who could spare me some money. Mostly business people: suits and briefcases. They stroll past without even looking at me, eyes fixed forward like horses in blinkers. I'm too tired to ask for help, and there's only room for one beggar on this platform. I gave my change to a homeless man sitting against the wall and walked back up to the street.

The walk is long, and despite the humidity my arms are clammy and ice cold by the time I reach Horatio Street, the laminate on my book wet with condensation. _Hydrological cycle: second stage._ I'm too tired to look into the abyss of each alleyway, to walk an enlarged circle around each pedestrian, to keep my eyes up and cautious. Instead I look at the concrete in front of me, watching out for puddles in an attempt to dry out my sneakers.

What have you done, Kellyn? What's going to happen to me when wind hits that I was the one who leaked information, who got one of those menschen killed? One brother won't shut the whole ring down, it'll just pour boiling water on the cat. What's going to happen when Kurt Shtolen is one son short and wants remuneration? _Punisher_ won't be the first target, I will. The mole, the fucking whistleblower. I don't know who to be more afraid of, all I know is that I need to be afraid of someone. It's either the king of Kitch who's run the whole town for years without question, or the man who turned it all upside down overnight. I'm too tired to make a decision so I assume hiding from them both is the lesser evil.

Almost there. The amber lights that line the road make Meatpacking look like a sepia photograph. I can hear the two real packing factories left in the district still wide awake, the steam rising from the rooftops, workers in white and bloody aprons smoking near the strip doors. Soon the gutters near the buildings will be flowing with dark red water, the blood from the warehouse being washed into the sewers, keeping the city alive like a vampire. Every time I walk over a drain I have to close my throat.

I can see the sign above Steve's shop, lit by the dull streetlights. I'm just a few hundred yards from my building when I hear a chorus of footsteps shoaling behind me, water splashing with each step. Suddenly I'm attentive, trying to discern how many are there, too scared to look back. They aren't walking separately, shoes hitting the ground in the same second with each stride. I straighten my legs and tread faster, trying to reach my building and my apartment and the bats and guns and kitchen knives. I'm heated now, adrenaline coating me with harsh alertness. They speed up when I do and then I know that I'm being followed.

This is when I make a sharp right into an alley system, breaking into a sprint once I leave the glow of the streetlights. If I can outrun them then I can get to my floor, lock my doors and load the gun quicker. I've mapped the block out before, traced the backway. I know how to circle back to Perry from 11th, how to cut through Bleecker and scale the fire escape up to Nina's floor, how to open the hallway window with the faulty lock. Bad landlords make for good escape routes. The textbook displaces my weight as I dash through the gap, shoes splashing the water like beating drums.

Once I start running I can hear them begin a shuffled rush behind me, voices present now, urging each other to 'get her.' I shove garbage cans and bags and pallets as I run, cluttering the passageway while I race between buildings, my lungs heaving soggy air in and out of my lungs, white spots barely subdued. I reach a fence separating complexes and throw my book before I jump, heaving my body over, hands digging into the metal chain-link. I land, stumbling, and begin to run again, ignoring the burn in my legs and the tightness in my chest. I can see the alley's exit now, golden light reaching towards me. Their feet aren't going fast enough. I can see my neighbor's window open, smoke floating out into the fog.

I'm almost on the street when I'm hit in the stomach, falling sideways, the book flying from my arms and sliding on the glassy concrete a few feet away. When I look up I see the book first, feel the wet ground soak my clothes, then I notice the pairs of feet circling around me, three, four, five. I roll over, my sides scraped raw, and I glance towards the alley entrance where I see I see a head of white hair shining in a halo from the streetlight, looming over me.

"Hi Lynnie." Markus sneers, hands at his sides like long, black wings. I'm propped on one elbow, the entire radius of my body wet from the ground. Next to him is Carl, and the other three look like children—Latin boys in flannel, panting from the chase. I'm too stunned to get up yet, too dazed to speak. Markus looks around the circle, inhaling violently through one nostril. When I catch his eye in the light I see his pupils are the size of dimes _. Septum nasi, Mydriasis, Benzoylmethylecgonine… Coke._

I'm shaking in the middle of their ring, the concrete freezing despite the hot air. Please, not tonight. Not in an alleyway, not with them taking turns. When I don't move or react his smirk drops, and he purses his lips before swinging down and grabbing my sleeve, pulling the collar all the way off my shoulder. "Get up!" He roared, yanking me to my feet, and I stumbled back, eyes on the faces that are circling me. The teenagers seem doubtful, but they watch Markus like canines, submissive and observant. Whatever I do, I can't scream. They'll go for hours if I'm screaming.

"Not so talkative now, are you?" He pants, sweat and spit wetting his face. He's really out of it. When he looks to Carl to retrieve something I try to burst out of the circle, barely making it past his wingspan before it throws me back in, hand gripping my arm like a vice. "Ohh no, Lynn. You're not leaving now are you? Not until you tell me what happened to my brother." I see what Carl had handed him. A long, silver pistol, glinting wildly as he turns it over in his hand. I know yelling for help won't work, that the scream of pigs in slaughter will drown me out to the meatpackers, that passersby will hurry across the alley, pretending they didn't see.

"I told you I didn't know anything." The words sound more desperate than I'd intended, and I know I'm not making it out when Markus smiles wildly at me, nodding. "She doesn't know anything, fellas." He grins, and the ring titters in unsure laughter. I keep my gaze on his icy hair, watching him look back at me before he whipped his arm out, the pistol ramming my cheekbone and sending me back to the ground, hair flying around me, dark with grime. "You think I buy that shit, Condon? You think I don't know when you're lying?!" I don't have time to recover before he kicks me like a soccer ball, the toe of his boot burrowing into the springy cartilage of my twelfth rib. I arch my back, the breath leaving my lungs in coughing spurts. Carl takes a turn, the heel of his boot stomping into my waist, the oblique muscle rolling under his shoe. I can't lay down, I can't take it. While they're laughing at the scene before them I roll onto my stomach, looking past Carl's shoes; there's a steel pipe lying next to a dumpster. I make a frantic army crawl towards it, reaching my hand out, the muscles searing. Markus sees this and brings his foot down on my left hand, stomping my fingers and knuckles, grinding them into the concrete with a hollow 'Pop!'

I lose it at the pain and I scream, bloodcurdling, horror movie type. It crawls up the walls and is lost once it reaches the rooftops, vanished in the fog. He's dislocated my last three fingers, the pinky at both knuckles. _Interphalangeal, metacarpophalangeal_. Markus is grinning madly, his teeth bared like a rabid dog. I bring my hand close to my chest, cries lacing each heaving breath. He kneels, and rolls me over, bringing the gun to me like a knife. "Aw, come on Lynnie, don't cry now." He laughs, and when I try to scoot backwards he shoves the gun into my crotch, the barrel pressing against my labia, wet denim against me. I freeze there, watching him with wild eyes, hair stuck to my face. He nods, tongue pressed against the inside of his teeth.

I've known my death wouldn't be spectacular: no last words, no inspiring speech on my final breath. I have no legacy to leave, no accomplishments to remember. I have so few memories to guide me home, my mind would only fade black, words humming in my head. I would be wiped off the tile of Hell's Kitchen, mopped up like a stain. This was it. This was my time, unworthy of a news headline, too regular to be written about in the Bulletin. I'm another casualty, just ten pints in the swimming pool of blood the Shtolen's have spilt.

When I hear the boys behind me untuck their shirts and undo their belts I feel a burning tear roll over my cheek, looking away from Markus' stare. "Don't tell me you didn't see this coming, Lynn" he grabs a fistful of hair and pulls my face forward. "Don't tell me you thought we were letting you slide on the payments out of kindness, huh? Don't tell me you thought I'd let you get away with killing my baby brother" He grips the hair tighter, shoving my head into the metal of the dumpster like a gong, my ears ringing, vision black and watery.

When he stands up and takes his jacket off I slump over onto the ground, warm blood puddling under my temple. All my adrenaline's gone, muscles weak, stomach coiled in from the lack of food. I think I'll just go to sleep, now. I close my eyes, or maybe they're still open, when Markus lifts his arms toward his team. "Well boys, I'd say the night went better than I'd hoped." Carl nods and chews his lip, the lackeys giving tagalong smiles, unsure of what to do with me now. When Carl takes a step towards me Markus stops him. "Now now, in order of age." He kneels down to me, blocking the light from the street. "We should dedicate the first round to Abel." He grabs the belt loops of my jeans and pulls, and I hope I fade before I can feel anything.

My eyes were clamped shut, so I don't see what happens first. I only hear a heavy, fleshy thud, and I first think it's me being hit, but I'm jolted back to consciousness when one of the teenagers falls next to me, his head dented, skull fragments broken inward like a meteor. My mind struggles to grasp the situation, streetlights fading in and out as silhouettes toss around. I can hear the thudding of footsteps beneath me, grunts and shouts above. I'm not being held down anymore, they're not paying attention. I hold my breath, turning over, the ground picking my skin.

I start to crawl, teeth gritted, my broken hand suspended above my elbow and my knees sliding against the ground. When I'm on all fours I feel my center of gravity spinning, and I'm almost knocked back when another Mexican bangs into the wall in front of me and slides down, his neck bent at a wild angle, face a mess of red meat. _"Cervical dislocation"_ I realize I'd spoken aloud, my tongue swollen and bitten, voice hoarse. I can feel the compounds bubbling up, my fatigued muscles being pumped with just enough epinephrine to crank my heartbeat, which I can hear in my head, the skull tender and pulsing.

I pray that my vision doesn't fail and heave up to my feet, panting, my knees wiggly and unstable. The thumping in my ears thins out, and I can hear the fight happening behind me. Another body is flung to the ground, and I see it's Carl, eyes wide, his throat spread open like a baked potato, still convulsing. I gasp and try to turn away, eyes glued to the gushing viscera. The scene sets me off, and I begin to run down the alley, clothes hanging from my limbs, stretched and soiled. _Fuck_. The book!

I turn back, facing the fight head-on now, scanning the ground for the blue cover, too high wired to notice the bodies or the three men crashing into each other. There it is, corner end soaked in a shallow pool of rain. I rush towards it, reaching to grab the spine when two black boots cut between us. I scuttle back just as another body falls, the last kid, and my eyes are up at the scene, watching two figures battle, shielding and exposing the streetlights, back and forth. The tears in my eyes blur my vision, but I know what I see. I backpedal and spin the other way, foot propelling me forward. I abandoned the textbook, darting the other way through the alley. When I'm just fifty feet away I hear a gunshot reverberate through the passageway, and I run faster. I tripped and stumbled over every pallet and garbage can I'd laid in my path, heaving empty breaths, legs rubbing raw against the frozen denim.

I cut a thin divider and shot towards the entrance of my building, skipping stairs three at a time, my shoes slipping on the sheet vinyl. When I get to my apartment I burst in, grabbing the bat by the door and swinging wildly, my eyes fogged with tears and blood and hair. I check every closet and corner, bat hovering over the crook of my neck, nostrils flaring wildly when I breathe. When the place is clear I drop the slugger, frantically locking my doors, pushing the fridge so it blocks the walkway, muscles on fire. Next I grab the shotgun and load it with a tremored hand, having to slam it on the wall to cock it, my right arm burning from overuse. I retreated to the corner of my room, sliding behind the bookcase, hand still mangled, clothes soppy and fused to my skin, barrel aimed at the door. My breathing's still labored, eyes wide and unblinking. When the shock finally faded I wept, my cries in tune with Nina below me, helpless, pained, and hysterical.

I waited there for hours, watching the sun crawl into the window. When nobody came for me I laid the gun on the ground, resting my arm, my left hand twisted and resting against the bookshelf. I crawled, gun dragging behind me into the bathroom, turning on the shower and cranking the faucet sideways, using the rest of my hot water for the month. The shoes slid off of me like a condom, and my shirt was so hard with grime that I could crack it off in chunks. My jeans and underwear had to be shed like snakeskin, peeled off in one wet layer.

I crawled into the shower, sitting next to the drain, water falling lazily, the water pressure and lime making the droplets fall like an old drinking fountain. I sat for another hour, even when the heater gave and the water poured ice-cold. Next I had to fix my hand. After another search through my apartment, I grabbed the first aid kit and a thin Law textbook before sprawling on the ground. Three popsicle sticks, adhesive, and an icepack. I placed a knuckle between my thumb and index finger, and bit down hard on the spine of the book. 'Pop!' One. I growled into the laminate, squinting tears from my eyes, wet hair soaking them up. Again. 'Pop!' Two. And three, and four.

I rested my hand on the ice pack, fingers wrapped in wooden splints. My head lay against the carpet, tears dried in straight lines into my hair. I was too tired to examine what had just happened, too exhausted to be afraid. I counted the cracks in the ceiling like sheep, my limbs heavy and sore with fatigue. Before I let sleep overtake me I breathed once, long and smooth, just to hear what it sounded like. No, not tonight. I was alive. I was still alive.


	8. Positive Psychology and Practices

I wake up and it's still sunny outside, the television whispering across the room. If I turn it off it won't come back on, so I let it drain my power and provide white noise. My limbs are rock solid, sore when I even think about moving them, my fingers still resting on the squishy icepack that's warm now. The fridge is still propped in front of the door and the bat is rolled against the couch. The gun's just a few feet away inside my room, and I'm still in my underwear, hair dried and fanned around me. When I lift my head to check the time on the TV it reads 9:40. When I fell asleep it was close to eleven… had I slept an entire day?

Getting up takes more effort than I'd prepared for. I have to use the baseball bat as a crutch and then a walking stick, pulling myself off the floor. I put on my clothes inch my inch, my shirtsleeve catching on the popsicle sticks, fingers shooting with sharp pains. "Owowowowowow" I whisper, groaning when I lift my arms so the shirt can slip over me. I have to wear boots in the summer heat because my sneakers are black with mud and filth, still damp from yesterday.

I remember my textbook's lost now and I feel even more sluggish, my arms drooped at my sides. This day just keeps getting better. I grab a random book off the shelf and toss it on the counter.

I have to shove the fridge without adrenaline now, my body purpled and yellowed, muscles raw. I only push it far enough to open the door. I leave the house and ignore the police cars parked on the other side of my building, coroners and yellow tape all around. When I make the zombified walk to work I count the spots on my body that were damaged. My head, my jaw, my shoulder, my eleventh and twelfth ribs, my obliques, my hip, my arm, my hand, my ankle, my other ankle, and unsurprisingly my public image. As I pass people on the street they regard me with longer glances, eyes a little wider, heads turned a little farther. Maybe because I look like a rainbow of bruises, or maybe because I'm present at all.

I shouldn't have survived last night. Markus should've have put a bullet between my eyes, in my temple, in my heart. I don't doubt it was premeditated, planned as a comeback, fueled by cocaine and mourning. Maybe the neighborhood knew I was going to be taken care of. That's probably why I'm such a strange sight to see today.

It's not till I click the lock open to Steve's that I realize today is Thursday, the second Thursday. Shipment Thursday. I burst into the store, rustling through the fridges and sinks and cabinets for something to protect myself. The gun's still at home, and all of the meat knives are short, thin and dulled. I almost lose it when the bell rings, and I spin around, beet red and shaking, my mind buzzing like a subway track. It's an older woman, hair wrapped in a kerchief, her small, glittery purse dangling at her wrist.

"Hello!" She waddles up to the counter, and I wait a few second before shuffling my feet, meeting her on the other side. "I'm looking for a trout to cook my sisters." Her accent's Chechen, and when she smiles at me her eyes disappear in a fan of wrinkles. I laugh, first in disbelief, that I actually have a customer and that they're not trying to murder me. I hesitate before nodding, my hands wiggly and unsure of what to do. "Uh, yes! Yeah, right here." I walk her to a window and slide the door open, using my working hand to pull out a large cut of meat and wrap it up for her. She gives me crinkled ones and fives and tells me about a dish from their hometown that she's making with it, and even though I have no idea what to think or say, I smile. When she scoots out of the door I stare at her ghost and feel the heavy muscles loosen, air filling my lungs in complete breaths, ribs tender but convalescing. _Costrochondritis: costosternal joint._

When the day ends and I don't receive a shipment or a gunshot wound I allow myself a moment. One moment to think that things are going to get better. Just a second to imagine Markus and his brothers are gone, that the gunshot I heard…that I was saved last night. That I actually have someone on my side, someone willing to help. There's actually a chance that I won't be going to bed, waking up, closing my eyes, taking a breath without being afraid anymore. I think about the black boots that I saw, the voices I heard, the shadow in the light. Finally, I'm not the one who has to be scared; they are.

The next day goes the same, and the day after that I realize I'm running low on product, so I take a long lunch and fix my hair before walking to the fish market on 9th and introducing myself to a shipper who works out of Boston: day-caught salmon, wild tuna, kind smile, three little girls. He's more than I can afford right now, but I hand him my money: a chunk of my rent and water bill included inside. He offers me a cut of swordfish and tells me his sister runs a home for women, eyeing my yellowed jawline. 'Hell's Kitchen's as home as it gets.' I don't explain anything, I just nod and say my thank yous, walking back to the shop and wrapping up my last flank of salmon before it goes bad.

When I'm home I walk to a door that's not mine and knock twice, the occupants behind it shuffling, hesitating before they unlatch the lock. I know the routine, I do the same. A small, thin woman opens the door, her eyes dry and wary of me. I hand her the chunk of salmon and tell her my name, that I live upstairs, that the meat's best cooked on the stove and that you can't go wrong with lemon. Her husband comes next to her, both staring like I've hidden explosives inside, like I'm a threat; we've all learned to act the same way. But after they speak in Italian for a minute she looks back to me, eyes crinkled and wet. They tell me their names are Fitz and Tia, the Accorsos. They have a son that they're sending to NYU, which is why they're suffering to pay off debts, starving out of love. I know this because they invite me in and make me dinner, tap water with homemade Ciabatta. I forgot what family dinners felt like, and I find myself sparing another moment to think about a better future. _Accursius: 1200 AD, legal theorist, glosses._

Back in my apartment I try to use my fingers again, wincing every few seconds, my fingers bending in slow motion. Even a wave is painful, but I think I can take the braces off now. I'm at my feet and holding a wooden 271 in a split second when I hear a sound outside my door. It wasn't a knock, not really, more of a shuffle, a thud against the floor on the other side. After a full minute of silence I inch towards the door, seeing an empty hall in the peephole. I inhale and swing the door open, stepping out into the hallway. Nothing.

I peer around and take another step forward, nudging something on the floor. I jumped, looking down to the object, blue laminate shining up at me. 'Introduction to Marine Biology.' I breathe in sharply, quickly, looking up and down the hall, rushing to the stairwell and out into the streetside. Nothing still. When I get back to my door I pick it up, the spine still intact, a few pages crumpled and curled, some straightened out—fixed. I hold it tight, retreating back through my door and locking it twice, then just once. Tonight I can at least try not being afraid.

 **THREE NIGHTS AGO—6:00 AM**

I thought she was dead when I got there. They were in a circle around her, the oldest crouched over and messing with her jeans. I had moved so quickly that they were all on the ground in seconds. The last German practically handed me the gun, shiny like a carnival prize. After he begged for his life he told me that if I killed him I was a dead man. I told him he'd already said it once. The realization spread till it was plastered on his sharp, pale face. One shot, right above the nose. When I looked around she was gone, and on my way out of the alley I stepped on her textbook. It was covered in crap, the pages dripping with water and mud.

I wanted to go to her place, to calm her down, make sure she cleaned her wounds up. I stared at her window for hours, ignoring the sharp sting in my sides, just to make sure nobody came for her, that she was safe.

I get back to my place and feed the dog, washing the blood off of my hands and face, the bright blue hardcover under my arm. With the brothers off the list I move one level up: 6 Cartel men, left-hand men. They do top tier dirty work—public relations, delivering weapons, dumping bodies in the Hudson. I sit down on the cot and the dog joins me, sniffing the book, licking my arms. I wipe the cover off and straighten some of the pages out, making sure they don't crinkle or rip. I see notes she's made in the pages, facts and root words and definitions.

You can tell when you look at her that she's thinking, that she watches every move you make, studying you, learning. This is why she's got every name down, every location and pattern locked in behind her eyes, green and watchful. I wait a few days before bringing the book back, leaving it right in front of her door. I'm gone before she can see me, back out into the night, headed to the meat locker where the Mexicans are working out of.


	9. Fundamentals of Philosophy

Monday comes and I make a point to set up early, fresh ice on all of the display shelves, fridges and freezers and lobster tank clean. I dump the expired fish and make sure I look like a good customer when Jacob and his brother-in-law drive up to the store, a grey Mack parking next to the sidewalk. My new shippers. I help him unload a starting shipment of fish, my healing hand numbed by the cold, boxes of icey meat stacking up inside. I'm the sixth person on their route, so he's already smothered in blood and water by the time he's at Steve's. He says his girls think it's cool.

I tip, more than I should have, and watch them leave. No Styrofoam coolers, no secondhand meat, no gun in my face. I realize I'm humming when I start unpacking a case of halibut, knee bobbing in a non-anxious manner. _Genus Hippoglosus_ , _demersal._ My elusive neighbor had played oldies on her radio all night, synthesizers and smooth guitar acting as a lullaby.

The bell rings so soon after Jacob leaves that I think he's still here, asking me to sign for something, telling me I forgot a box of tilapia. I wipe my freezing hands on my apron and turn see a statue of black clothing. There he is. He's burst in as if ready for a fight, but stopped cold when it was just me inside. Just me, safe and sound. He straightens up and I see he'd had a hand on something behind him. We stand for a second, just a few feet away, the counter no longer separating us. "Hi." It's all I can chirp out, my hands heating back up, neck warm behind my hair. "Hello." He nods, and glances at the crates of fish stacked next to me. Frank, I say his name in my head twice. I want to thank him, so badly, but I'm not sure which words to use. I have none. Ironic.

"New shippers. Nontoxic." I simper, and place a cut of flimsy tilapia on the ice. He nods emptily and looks down, shaking his head, a short laugh breaking out. I decide I've made myself scared for too long, and take a step towards him, closing the gap a little. Instead of speaking about the obvious, about how he (most likely) killed the Shtolens, about how he (most definitely) saved my life, instead I catch the blue spine of my textbook on the counter across the store.

"Thank you." I look from it to him, but he knows what I mean, and we make eye contact, me latching on for the first time. They're brown, I knew that, but the irides are lighter now that I'm focusing on him, more dynamic. _Aperture stop._ He's also comically taller than me, large boots augmenting him. We're quite dissimilar now that we're mirroring each other. One small, blonde and and inconspicuous, the other tall, strong and threatening.

He's the first to break now, and he nods again, glancing around the store like I would, eyes deterred from mine. "Don't mention it." He looks back to me and I smile, intrepid. "So what's next on your to-do list? Stop world hunger? Fix the economy?" I turn, hiding my face when it blooms red, positioning a long filet of catfish to pretend I'm busy. I hear him chuckle behind me and adjust his posture, boots clicking against the tile. "Not quite my talents. Just trying to find some people." He says everything he needs to without using the words, something I'm not familiar with.

In our silence I feel the pinch of doubt in my side, pushing me to go back behind the counter, to keep my eye on him, to shut up and stay away. In the wave of good intentions I bypassed the fact that I assisted a murderer; that six powerful and connected people were killed, that I saw him do the killing, that I probably wasn't spared on purpose, that he's right behind me with a gun in his pants. My hands freeze in the mound of ice. Pun intended.

"You know the Cartel?" I turn back quickly, eyebrows linked. He's staring at me now, towering, in control. My mouth is limp and my arms are stiff at my sides. That fast he's on the hunt for someone else, barely a week to rest his torn skin and muscle and conscience. But I'm not being executed—I'm still being pegged as some all-knowing entity. I keep switching my gaze between his belt and his face. "Um, Mexicans? They're the main supplier for meatpacking. Beef, pork, it's easy to hide guns in the ribcages." _Rear flank, foreflank_. I say it like it's none of my business, off-handed and dismissed. I can feel him watching, gaze like a hot flashlight on my back. He walks up next to the crate, pulling out a filet and handing it to me, eyes on my face. I'm cagey, but I accept, trying to gauge my safety in his presence. Our hands overlap when I take it from him, olive against sand.

"How do you know?" He asks, and I look at him, my hand digging in the ice. "You pick up a few things living here. The deli on Washington buys from them. They stash their ammo, keep some cash." I'm not as direct of a source for this situation; obviously the Cartel isn't looking to smuggle assault rifles inside 11-inch cuts of tuna and salmon, but I know the siblings who run the deli: good people, just as afraid as I was. He keeps handing me handfuls of meat, and I realize he's helping me, thumbs pressing too-hard into the fish and leaving indentions, picking up giant portions of grouper with one hand. The insecurity ebbs a little, and I think I may be safe.

"Why, do you not trust me?" I glance back at him and give a diffident smile. He grins, bearing teeth, and rubs his neck, the cold bits of ice melting in his hand when he feigns uncertainty. "Eh, still trying to figure that out."

My smile spreads then disappears, only lasting a second. Over his shoulder I can see through the glass that two men are nearing the store. Business suits and coats, too well-dressed to be buying seafood, too out of place to be on my street. Frank sees me and turns, watching the men cross the road, just yards away. My veins pump blood violently, and I can only imagine what's going to happen. Viscera on the black and white tile, a gunpowder smell in the air. "You have to go." I hurry out, seeing his hand reach behind him, fingers wrapping around a large black handle. "Yeah, fuck that." I can tell they have guns, which means he can. If they die in or around my store then whatever anonymity I've had will be lost forever, I will be _seen_.

He takes a step towards the door and my arms shoot out, fingers wrapping around his forearm and pulling him backwards. Jesus, I can barely nudge him. _Brachioradialis, flexor carpi radialis._ He flexes under my fingertips and turns back, confounded, looking me over. "Please, they haven't seen you." He's glaring down at my defiant hands for a few seconds, and inhales through flared nostrils before following me behind the counter to a large stainless steel fridge. "Get in," I open the door, shoving bags of ice and shrimp farther back inside. "What?" He growls, and my movements become more frantic to push him inside. "Just let me handle this!" I make small, fraught pushes on his back as he steps in, unsheathing a large shotgun from his pants. My heart's racing when I meet his eyes.

"Don't come out." I say lowly, turning back to the door when I hear it open, closing the fridge and standing in front of it. The two men observe me, smiling, almost pleasant. "Hi, can I help you?" I manage to sound composed, my knee jiggling back and forth. They approach the counter, bypassing the leftover crates and growing puddle of ice on the ground. "How you doing, miss?" One says. In an attempt to act undaunted I nickname them Bonnie and Clyde. By their accent and clothes they seem to be Latin, maybe Cheech and Chong would be better.

Cheech places his hands on the counter, looking around the store with scrutiny. "You might've been wonderin' why you haven't received any shipments to your place lately? There's been a change in management." My hands alternate between clammy and hot. I could have guessed they were Kurt's men, I should have known it wouldn't be this easy to break away. They lift their hands and bob their heads, talking in a slick rhythm. They're not even looking at me. They alternate their gaze from the cash register to the display cases to my tits, making eye contact with only each other. "We're gonna take over as your new supplier." He grins, and my mouth is locked shut, teeth grinding behind my lips. _Bruxism._

I'm silent for a split second, alternating between fear and anger. Two thugs in front of me, one murderer behind me: screw it, why should I be afraid?

I straighten and lock my eyes on Cheech, deadpan. He's not paying attention: cash register, display case, tits. "Sorry you came all this way to tell me, but I don't need any more shipments." I say boredly, eyes half lidded. I walk to the crates of fish and grab a heap of wrapped mackerel, movements fluid. The air of coolness may be ersatz but I put on a good front. "I've already bought from someone else." I carry the fish to the fridge and crack it open just enough for me to lean in. Frank's standing at the opening, his gun pointed right at the men on the other side. I reach in and place the meat on a small crate of ice. We lock eyes for a second. 'Not yet, please, don't come out.'

I pull away and close the door, facing them again. They aren't smiling anymore, nor are they objectifying me. "Really? That quick, huh?" They glance to each other and Chong speaks up. "You moved on fast! You sure you didn't _plan_ for your, uh, change in clients?" He asks, and I hear a tiny 'tap' against the steel on the inside of the fridge. I tense and smirk, still seeming uninterested. "Nope, I just have a business to run. I can't have my suppliers skipping deliveries." I sound defiant, bitchy, and they don't think it's cute.

"I see. Well no hard feelings." He opens a briefcase and pulls out a sealed manila envelope, laying it on the counter. "Just give us a call then if you, ah, change your mind." He taps the paper once after he slides it towards me, both giving vulpine smiles before leaving the store, their shiny hair and leather shoes reflecting the afternoon sun. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Once they're out of eyeshot I exhale a thick breath onto the counter, shoulders slumped and sore. I jump when the steel door kicks open, my stowaway stomping out and shaking his head, the black shotgun hanging from his fingers. He looks down at me and I'm unsure what's going to happen next. A dense silence spreads and when I move to break it he takes a large step from behind the counter and towards the door. "You know who those men were?" He says simply, peering out of the glass in their direction. I turn back to the envelope. It's thin, nothing bumpy or sharp inside the paper. "They work for Kurt Shtolen. He controls the entire crime ring here…he practically runs the town." I say it helplessly because I feel it creeping back over me like a swarm of hungry insects. The ice in the crates is melting; my new shipment, my new shippers, all for nothing.

"Yeah I know him." He says without looking my way, instead checking his gun's barrel to see if it's loaded, cocking it and clicking the safety on. Oh no. I abandon the folder again and approach him, slipping a little on the puddle of water next to me. "You can't go after them. Kurt's way too powerful and he's got an entire team of security." My words are coming out quickly and I can tell he's not listening to any of them, instead locking the gun under his jacket and getting ready to leave.

"They'll kill you!" He's reaching the door. I take a step forward, words fraught. "Frank!" He finally pauses and turns back to me, eyes stone cold, the brown miasma of his eyes suddenly solid and fixed. I halt and stand my ground, knowing I can't stop him, even if the hopeful child inside of me doesn't want to. 'Yes, go and get them. Go and save the day.' His hand presses against the door handle and the bell dings, then in an instant he's vanished into the street, tailing the men back to whatever pit they machinate in, walking in to either his death or theirs.

I take two steps back and breathe before slipping again in the puddle and tumbling, my hand grabbing the counter to break my fall, pulling the manila paper to the ground. I snatch it before it can soak and stand again, the thin sheet bending in my fingers. I don't want to open it, I don't want to read the letter inside, the death threat or otherwise. I peel back the sealant, paper tearing and sticking to the fold. I stuck my hand in without looking and felt slick, smooth material. I pulled the sheets of paper out and inspected them.

My heart sinks, the beats humming low and then churning quickly, and I'm hyperventilating by the time I can focus on the details of each picture, tears piling up in my eyes and then cascading down my cheekbone. It's four shots of Steve, at the hospital, in the chemo wing, in his room. It's the nurse who gives Steve his medicine and helps him up in bed, the intern who brings him food, Claire. He has people on the inside. He has the power. He's gonna kill me and Steve. Right after he kills Frank.

In a desperate, one-time church going Catholic attempt I send a botched prayer up into my ceiling fan. "Please, please help." It squeaks when it spins, the blades blurring together in a white circle.


	10. Advanced Organic Chemistry

**MONDAY, 4:00 P.M.—PERRY ST.**

The cartel doesn't like to hide out. They never stay in one place, no home base, no lair. Since midnight I've been tailing them and they never stay in the same place for more than a few hours. I got some coffee at the sidewalk stop across the block from their current stop, now I'm just standing like an idiot leaning against a street sign. Two hours, they're still not coming out. I look up at the steel cross above me: Perry and West 4th. Course that's where I ended up.

I look down the road and sure enough I can see the dirty green and white sign. There's a giant truck outside her door, the motor still running. A little jolt pulls me forward, and I figure the Mexicans won't leave for a while. I start walking towards the shop, seeing someone standing next to the driver's side, looking in. Once I'm on the block someone else steps out of the store looking like he's bathed in blood, his clothes smeared, hands dirty, counting a slip of cash before smiling and hopping into the truck, the car speeding down the road. _Fuck._

Another jolt sets me off and I launch forward, coffee on the sidewalk and my hand reaching around the hilt of my gun. They're gone by the time I reach the door and when I kick it open there's nothing there. The tiles are still clean, no body on the floor, no yellow hair stained orange and red. My ears are hammering, eyes spinning around the counters. The shelves completely empty, two lobsters crawling over each other in their tanks. They wiped this place clean, they took everything, they took—

" _let this groove, light up your fuse, hm hmm hm"_

In the far corner there's a stack of crates and ice. She's turned away from me, humming, whorls of hair bobbing with her knee. Kellyn. When the bell on the door rings she turns and looks my way the way she usually does: feet first, then trailing up to my face, chin lifting up. A massive fish with its head still on is in her hands like a pet. We say a quick hello and then nothing for a minute, my breath slow now, blood quiet in my ears. I want to see how she healed; her face is one color again, no limp, no scars. Medicine, she said she studied fish and medicine, right?

"New shippers." She smiles a little and nods towards the boxes, eyes scanning me like an x-ray. I have to laugh a little. New shippers. Come on Frank, you've been on edge for too long. She's okay, she's alright. When I look up she's a little closer, looking at me, studying. Another moment of silence and she looks away. She gets uneasy when I look at her so I take the chance when she's staring at something across the room. She's cleaned up: clothes are fresh and she looks like she's actually slept through the night. I can only imagine what I smell like, and I'm lucky to be standing considering the two full days I've had to tail these guys. Maybe I should go back now.

"Thank you." She's staring at me now, locked on and unafraid. I'm not quite sure which part I'm being thanked for, but I can guess. She turns back and unpacks the fish, asking me what I'm going to do next, and her voice sounds less edgy. "Just looking for some people." She stiffens a little, and I can see her arms flush red, knee moving back and forth. Another silence. I need to go, get back to check if the Mexicans have left the cafeteria. Instead I'm still here, shadowing her as she heaves giant poultry into the bed of ice.

"You know the Cartel?" She whips around and her face is ruddy, eyes wide and confused. I watch the hair flip over her shoulder when she turns. She backs up a little into the counter and clears her throat before telling me they're meat suppliers, smuggle guns in their cargo. Jesus, how does she know this shit? Streets, people, times and dates and details locked in place. I see her hands struggle to grip the tail of a bright silver fish and take a few steps to the counter, grabbing one out of the crate and handing it to her. We're close now, and she holds her hands still for a second, watching me carefully. What are you thinking?

We pass fish back and forth for a few seconds and she finally stops staring, lips relaxed, face still candy-pink. Her hands are ice cold when she touches mine, but I imagine they're smooth. "Why, do you not trust me?" She smiles and I can tell she's not afraid to look at me now. Finally. I take a hand and rub the back of my neck, relaxing the tired muscle. "Eh, still trying to figure that out." Still trying to figure you out.

I grab the tail of another fish but when I look to her again she's frozen, looking over my shoulder to the street. Two men, Mexicans, pressed suits, model 1887s strapped to them under their coats. "You have to go." I hear her blurt out, voice rushed and breathy. I reach behind my jacket, cold metal in my fingers. They're headed right for the store, just a few meters away. My blood boils and I take a step towards the door. They can die in the street, that way she won't have to mop them up.

I stop when she grabs me, tugging back like a child. I jerk and see her short fingers are clutching my arm and her eyes are wide, ogling me. "Please, they haven't seen you." She tugs me again, and I can feel the cold from the ice seeping through my jacket onto my sweaty skin. If I gun them down then the Cartel men will hear, they'll ditch the place and scram to whatever den they're headed for next. "Please." Her voice is coming out in pants, and I let her pull me behind the counter, figuring she's taking me out through the back. Instead she takes me to a huge freezer and pulls the door open, shoving bags of food farther back. "Get in."

"What?" She's looking out the glass window and patting my sore shoulders and back, agitated. She mutters something franticly when I step inside and she pulls the door shut, staring at my shotgun, then me. "Don't come out" she whispers, and I hear the doorbell ring over the sound of the fan inside. It's dark, but she didn't close the door all the way, so I can see her through the open slit, facing the counter, stick straight. When I breathe it comes out as fog, and the sweat on my skin feels like it's turning into ice. I hold the barrel of the gun against the door, ready, waiting. The cold tightens my muscles and makes me tense, staring out of the crack with my neck exposed to the air.

They tell her they're taking over for the Germans and I want to jump out, spray the room with gunpowder. They work for him, the one who owns the club, the one who's distributing chemicals and weapons in the town. The Cartel men call him the Chemist. It almost makes me grateful for the nickname I got. He's the top of the pyramid, the head honcho. I'm not back here for him, but he's definitely on my list.

Instead of backing down to them she shuts them off, walking past the fridge and grabbing something. I can hear ice crunching and her feet coming close to the door before I see her fingers wrap around the frame, pulling the handle and opening the door. They still can't see me, but she reaches inside, a bag of meat in her hand. When she leans inside her hair brushes against my ear, placing the bag on the ground, and she looks at me closely, no sound coming from either of us. Even in the dark I can see the dots on her face.

She pulls back and closes the door completely so I can't see anything, and the fan makes it almost impossible to hear. I lean close to the door and the tip of my gun clicks against the steel. Shit. I pull back a little and wait. Muffled voices still. I hold still, arms tight to my sides, waiting until I hear the bell ring again to kick the door, stepping out onto the tile. She jumps and watches me walk over to the glass, looking for which direction they went. I'm assuming she knows who they are just as much as I do.

She says his real name: Kurt Shtolen. When I cock the gun she rushes over to me, frantic again. "You can't go after them." She talks fast, hands bobbing weirdly, eyebrows crossed. It's not till I'm at the door that she reaches for me again, stopping cold when I turn to her. She said my name. Her eyes are sharp, probing me for something. I held still, the heat coming back to my skin. Her hands looked like they could be reaching for me.

I walk back out into the street, looking towards the cafeteria. Sure enough all six are piling into a black van, heading south. I follow on foot, the hard metal stabbing into my back when I walk. By the time I get to their stop for the night the sun's been gone for an hour, yellow streetlamps lighting the warehouse. One guy standing watch, short, barely put up a fight. The rest were inside playing poker, loud TV in the background. So loud nobody heard the first one when I put him on the ground.

It started off fine. They didn't see me coming so I got about five or six down before they swarmed. Somewhere along the way they'd pushed me into another fridge, white walls and hookfuls of meat swinging side by side. I was taking three at once when one sliced my back with a Bowie, a massive gash running up my spine. I went into overdrive, hanging them on hooks and slicing them at the gut. Only when I was walking out of the fridge could I actually feel the blood that soaked my jacket and pants. My face was busted and my arms were cut to shreds, hands dripping with the Cartel.

When I got back out into the night I stumbled, socks wet with sweat and blood. I was way too far from the garage, too weak to run, barely good enough to walk. I made my way through alleys and backways, two hours of walking and bleeding till I had to stop and lean on something, my vision was starting to blur, a drunk and hungover feeling in my head. I looked up at the streetsign, trying to gauge how far I had to go, how long it could make it. I was on Greenwich but I was still almost 15 blocks away. Fuck.

I make a quick and foggy decision and walk North for a block, back to the same spot I'd been a few times before. I looked up at the building, all brick, cracked and scrawny. There's words echoing in my head, blending together, keeping me moving. _Medicine, medicine, Maria, medicine, water, FrankandLisa, keep going, secondfloor, lay down, just a fewmoreminutes, Kellyn._

I just about collapse outside of her door, leaning hard against the frame, my hands soggy and red. I make a knocking sound against the chipped wood and close my eyes.


	11. Practices in Hospitality

I'm home when the sun's down, writing Steve's check on top of his manila portfolio, ironically. This is his last one. Next week he'll be done and he can come home. I'm going to ride the subway and yank him out of there and buy him lunch, and then we can leave, forever, say 'fuck you' to the town that refuses to keep us safe. I made a decision when Frank left my store that he was a dead man, that the changes being made were provisional and that my faith was useless. The strain of having to shift from hopeful to helpless is tiring, and I'm tired of being thrown from side to side.

I wish my sister was here. We used to read on this couch together, study, test each other's brains as they grew. Sarah was the shining paradigm, the planned child. She never caused a fight over our aunts, disordered lives or plans. Her name was picked when my mother was a child, planning her family in a game of MASH. I was the accident, I caused the arguments. Kelly and Lynn, Kel and Lynn. Me.

Sarah was smarter, braver, prettier. When I rub my tired face I imagine the Dutch ephiledes that dust my cheeks, the sandy skin unable to hide a blush, beige and pale curls. Sarah's just like our dad, tan Aussie skin and thick ashy hair, crazy beautiful. One of us got out, it was bound to be her.

The life I manage to eke out makes our contact near impossible; the sporadic calls from the phone booth outside my complex, the occasional letter in my mailbox without locks. I'm encumbered with the inability to reach her, to hold onto her. I wonder if she still thinks about us. A thought flitters through my head like a strobe of light: if we died, disappeared into the night, floated to the bottom of the river like Happy Chow, would she even know? What inheritance would be mailed to her? Outdated books and the rights to the store is all we'd leave in our wake.

My pen slips on something under the check when I sign it. I pick it up and look at the envelope underneath, seeing an indentation and embossment on the seal. I set the check aside and pick up the envelope, rubbing my finger over the shape. A semicircle over a circle and cross. _Caduceus; Mercury._ It's a signature, a trademark of Shtolen I'm guessing, based off of his alias. _'Mind over matter.'_ I have to laugh. "Bullshit." I chuck the envelope and photos in the garbage, ruffling my hair and waking to the bedroom.

I'm pulling the sheets back on my bed when I hear a thud against my wall, two half-assed knocks against the door. I backtrack, squinting at the egress. Nothing. I hold still and wait a second. Cartel? Henchmen? Kurt himself? Who knows who's out for me tonight. I take baby steps towards the door, wrapping my fingers around the handle of a composite bat, cold alloy in my hands.

I inch to the peephole, trying to keep my eye as far away as possible. The hole's been smeared in red, and I hear another thud against the frame. _Fuckfuckfuck_ , it's all I think when I swing the door open, expecting to see Steve laid out like a welcome mat. Instead I'm met with lazy half-lidded eyes, brown and foggy. Frank, alive. He's leaning against my doorway, almost cool, his face beat up and smiling coolly.

"Frank? How do you—" I trail off, uninterested in my own question when I see his legs are locked to stay straight, left hand dangling at his side, a trail of blood dripping off of his index finger. No, oh no. He smiles, looking away and then back to me. "Sorry to wake you. I was wondering if you had a, ah, first aid kit." The words roll out of his mouth dazedly, and I can feel my heart beating fast in fear; not for me this time, for him. I hesitate, and when I move towards him he takes a step and stumbles, rolling into me. His large hands swoop in and grab the doorframe, then my shoulder, eyebrows knitted together.

"Shit!" I whisper, holding him up as he staggers and tries to walk on his own. "Come here, come to the couch." We blunder up to the sofa and he collapses, eyes unfocused, breath labored. He roars when he leans back, and after I pull my arm away it's covered in blood. "Frank, what happened?" I give him a once over, my hands unafraid, touching his face and peeling his jacket away from his chest. He pulls his arms through the sleeves and when I tug it off it's heavy and soaked. His back is painted red, hot blood spilling from a ravine in his back.

When I gasp he lets out a chuckle and then a groan. "Come on, it ain't that bad." I can barely hear him over the sound of my heartbeat in my head when I rush crazily through my apartment, retrieving various items and my large plastic tin full of medical supplies. It's all things I've lifted from the hospital: syringes, IVs, a suture kit and scalpel. I grab an entire stack of gauze pads and rush back to him. He's leaning over, eyes closed. "Frank! Don't fall asleep." I'm saying his name quickly, shoving the coffee table out of the way and pulling pillows to the floor.

When I get back to him I put my hand on his face, checking his pupils as he lazily brushes them away, too gentle. "Where's your cellphone? I need to call an ambulance." He shakes his head, eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not going to a fucking hospital, not after I shot the damn thing to shit." I'm fumbling in his pockets for a nonexistent phone when I stop, glaring at his tired eyes. "That was you?" I ask, and he looks at me deadpan, groggily trying to sit up. I'm too frantic to be angry, but I place my hands on his shoulders rougher than I should have.

"Come on, sit still." I pull him forward and lift his shirt up over his head, soiled with sweat and cut up from whatever got him. "You trying to get fresh with me, doc?" He jokes through swollen lips and I shake my head, turning his back to face me. "I'm not a doctor, that's my sister." Where's my fucking sister, where's the doctor?

He's pale now, covered in his own blood, fighting to cover his drunken body language. _Hypovolemic shock._ "What's your blood type?" I rip open an IV and wrap a rubberband around his arm, pulling tight with my teeth, and he only grumbles. I have to do something, right now. _Kidney failure, anemia, pulmonary edema._ Shit.

I figure I need to risk it rather than let him bleed out. I find his vein, shoving the needle into the crook of his elbow and then mine, seeing the plum-colored blood fly through the line and into his arm.

"Okay, okay, hold still." He's calmer than I am, barely registering the pain. While we're still attached to each other I press gauzes into his back that soak in seconds, cleaning his wound and prepping a suture kit. I should have done this first. He barely tenses when I begin to pulling the needle cleanly through, forcing my mind to shut up and just remember which pattern of stitch I need to do.

He's still conscious, staring out of the window. We sit in silence for an hour, the TV cooing in the opposite corner. I feel a little sleepy because of the transfusion, but he seems to be doing okay. I'm on the twentieth stitch when I feel his lungs expand under my fingers. "Thank you." He says lowly, and I have to chuckle. Don't thank me just yet. "Consider us even." I see his head turn to peer at me, and I feel relaxed for the first time, finally unperturbed.

I snip the thread and seal his stitch, reaching around him to grab sanitizing wipes. When I clean the skin on his back and shoulders I tell him to look at me so I can check his eyes again. He's not as pale now, and I pull the IV out of my arm, gingerly pulling his out and trashing it. I get him water and crackers, basically all I had, and I sit down with him again, bandages in hand.

"You look like this after every fight?" I say casually, wiping a gash on his shoulder, placing giant white bandages all up and down his marred arms. Judging by the scars he's messily fixed up his wounds before, jagged stitch marks and bulbous streaks lining his skin. He's still drowsy, a smug smile on his face. "Eh, you should see the other guys." He says cooly, looking from the television to me. A strobe flies through my vision again and I see Carl Shtolen's riven throat. No, I shouldn't.

I shake my head, emptily smiling, hair falling forward into my face. I'm focused on a thin stab wound above his armpit when he lifts a hand and brings it to the side of my cheek, pinching a lock of hair between his fingers and tugging twice, like a bell. My face heats instantly, and I glance at the pads of his finger next to my eye. Deep olive skin, dirt lining the grooves of his fingertip. I refocus on the bandage.

He turns his head and looks at the bookshelf, then the coffee table. "You in school?" He asks, and I follow his gaze, shaking my head emptily. "Never. They were a gift." I say, engrossed in his bandages. He chuckles, head bobbing. "No wonder you're so sharp." I want to smile, to blush. Stop, stop. He reaches for the textbook on the coffee table and flips it open to a random page, finger scanning the lines. "What's a… mesocyclone." He looks back to me and I meet his eyes, bright, lively.

"Are you, quizzing me?" I leer, and he shrugs. I look down to his arm and realize I've been done for a few minutes, my hand rubbing the bandage mindlessly. "It's um, it's a vortex of air. It's the kind of wind in really bad thunderstorms." _Supercell, convective storm._ He nods, reading the paper with narrow eyes. "Jesus, you've got it all down, don't you?" I shake my head, bigger smile now. If you only knew. When we make eye contact it lasts longer, feels better, which is exactly what makes me uneasy.

I realize we're sitting just like me and my sister had, and I get up a little too quickly, grabbing the empty bandage wrappers and first aid kit. When I come back to the living room with a large, white t-shirt and fresh socks he's leaning over, fingering the bandages, looking out of my window at the horizon of rooftops. He glances up at me when I hand him the clothes, hands wrapping around the worn, soft cotton. "I know it's not your color, but it'll do." I jest, and he nods once, pulling it over his head. It's only when he tugs the fabric over his chest that I really notice his body: olive skin, healthy under the scars, muscles tone and swelling. "Thank you ma'am."


	12. Fundamentals of Building Construction

What now?

Is he staying? Is this safe? Should I ask him to leave? Do I want him to?

He's still turned away, facing the city, and it dawns on me that he is the one person I do not know, the book I cannot read, the lexis I cannot memorize. Why did he come to this town, to me? What does he want? Had he followed me home? I'm asking so many questions because I'm trying to overlook the dark corner in my mind where another query lurks, one that I'm avoiding regarding: what do I want?

I open my mouth and prepare to address our strange situation, but the windy sound of an inhale gets cut short when he speaks first, the low hum of his voice wet and tattered. "They had a plan to level the block lining the river a couple years back, before I enlisted. Said you'd be able to see all the way to Jersey." My mouth is still open, lips parted in rigor. I hardly register his words, trailing his gaze to the rooftops, teensy lights of the bridge glowing against the skyline.

He's still glaring out of the window, breaths rushing through his nostrils as if he's always panting. He can't see me, and I use the opportunity to look at the lumpy bandages lining his back. I picture his adrenal glands, just inside his ribs, churning hormones and steroids constantly, keeping him at work. _Suprarenal; aldosterone, cortisol._ My feet are bare and I realize it for the first time when they pad stickily across the floor a few steps to him, drawn in, less cautious.

He sways when he breathes, elbows resting on the center of his vastus muscles. "You're, from here?" No Kellyn, don't do it. I take a step further, curious, and for the first time. I _want_ to know this, not observe from a hiding place, no, this is intentional. The TV hisses behind us about a homicide in a meat locker on 39th, about a vigilante, about a Punisher. He looks to me, our faces glowing in the cold light of the screen.

We know each other's secret but we're not using it. I haven't rushed to the gun, I haven't called for help. He hasn't attacked me, he hasn't disposed of the witness. I find the typical force that grips me tight with fear is releasing, that the voice screaming 'danger!' is being muted. Somewhere between the wall and the couch I decide I'm safe, and I move closer. I sit on the coffee table near him and watch his palms dryly rub together, callouses catching on each side like velcro.

"Queens, actually." He says after a drawl, and he licks his lips, looking back out at the buildings. I can see the thick white vapor drifting out above us, my neighbor's cigarette creating an overhead. The loss of blood makes me feel fuzzy, loose.

I smirk and stick my finger towards him, testing my poise. "Let me guess…" He watches me confusedly, then warms, russet eyes crinkling. "Italian." I reprise the motif, and he lets out a quick laugh, a gust of air past neat teeth, the crack in his lip stretching.

He shakes his head, a slight tremor he performs before he speaks. I can see that now he's the one avoiding my eyes, shifting his gaze, only glancing every few seconds. "Not that hard to guess, huh?" He chuckles, sitting up a little. "My folks were, ah, Sicilian." He smirks at the floor, big boots unlaced but attached, my clean socks peeking out over the collars. _Archimedes of Syracuse, Vesuvius, mafia._ I'm staring but I don't care, totally ignorant of my etiquette or image. I'm barefoot and braless, pallid from the transfusion, small smears of dried blood on my hands and arms, hair messy in an unstylish way. We're not as dissimilar anymore, both worn and impenitent.

"Is that why you came to the store? Wanted to cook something traditional?" I try another smile; I'm not too bad at this. He looks confused for a second and laughs, shaking his head in big swoops. "Nah, I'd never even had fish before." He looks down at his hands, rubbing the inside of a finger. My eyebrows crinkle, and I agree with the idea that information was his main objective then, and that it probably still is. "My wife didn't really like the stuff. Never ate it." Both of us are still in the quiet, summer heat baking the room, newscasts clogging the air. My hands are clammy and they slip a little on the surface of the table. _Eccrine glands, friction ridges._ Wife, wife, he's rubbing his ring finger.

I know we won't talk about family, his or mine, and before he can back out of the conversation I add on. "Then why did you?" His head shoots up, hands paused, and I can see he wasn't expecting it, absent in his thoughts. He holds for a second, mouth open, fingers twitching. The rolls on his forehead relax, and his eyebrows unwind, softening. He shakes his head again, small waves back and forth. "I dun-" he peers down, rubbing a bandage on his wrist before looking back up to me, speaking simply. "Guess I just wanted to talk to a pretty girl."

While his face hides all emotion mine is giving, burning under the skin, eyes wide, lips frozen. Any stereotypes regarding flirtation are void in our context. There's no coffee shop, no pressed suit, no lock of hair being brushed behind my ear. There's only the cracked, yellowed walls and smell of damp air, the murmur of chaos on the television, blood stains on my holey couch, uncertain intentions, and Frank. Despite our unspectacular circumstances my heart still flutters inside my chest excitedly, not in the usual trepidation. _Mediastinum, right atrium, sinoatrial node: pacemaker._

My mind is whirring, bathed in endorphins, and I feel like I want to keep going, to hear his voice all muddy and guileless. This, this is what I have missed: human contact, conversation, feeling. I want to reach out and touch his arm again, try to revisit the warmth of his skin. Jesus, Kellyn, stop. Look at the TV, look what he's done. I try to remember what caution feels like, I do, but the druggish pleasure of not being afraid dominates my senses.

Our interaction has lasted too long to back out of, too short to gauge what will happen next. All I want now is to keep going, to _learn_ him, reasons and motives. The wary voice is barely audible now, whispering admonitions of 'stand back, you don't know what will happen.' But I want to. What will happen if I get just a little bit closer? For once I am convinced of my safety, naïvely confident that I'm going to be okay, that this man, who used my real name and bought shitty fish just to talk, means me no harm.

We've been silent for a moment, so I take a turn and speak, peeling my hands off of the table and leaning forward. I recall an earlier comment and pry, widening the speculum. "What did you enlist in?" He's still looking at me, and I can see my words ignite a conflict, his face distorting. He leans back, glowering down at his open palms, dirt lining the crevices of his hand. _Palmar crease: themar, distal, proximal._ I think I've crossed the line and prepare for him to retreat, hands slackening on the tableside. He clenches a fist and looks past me to the television.

"Marines. Toured Iraq and Afghanistan." He replies, and I swallow quietly, my mouth cottonball dry. I try to envision the white peaked cap, navy blue dress all starched and stiff, a Mameluke sword at his hip. _Semper fidelis, "always faithful."_ His hair is shaped in an overgrown high-and-tight, and I recall the way he stood aside me when we unpacked fish: tall and rigid, as if at attention.

It's difficult to imagine him so clean, but I can understand the restraint, the expressionlessness. I better visualize him in digital camouflage, decorated in artillery, Stahlhelm-like helmet covering his eyes. Even that's difficult to picture, though. Both seem too clean, too outlandish. It's hard just to picture a clean face, shaven and unmarked. This version in front of me is the one I know, the one I want to know.

"That's you know all of… this?" I don't gesture to him, instead motioning towards the window, out at Hell's Kitchen, at the meat locker, the alleyway, the pier. He glances towards the city and clenches his jaw, the auricles of his ears twitching when he does. He inhales and exhales, air heaving through his nose, and nods slowly, wordless. I clasp my hands together, knees bumping when I rest my elbows on them. What happened to you? What made you come here, do this? I need to mitigate my eagerness, to close the diopter and restrain myself; but I can't. I want to know.

"Why?" He turns to me, and I realize I've leaned closer, sitting on the edge of the table, coccyx pressed into the cheap particle board. "Why are you doing all of this? Why'd you come to Hell's Kitchen?" The words spill hastily and I break the pattern of gentle questioning, my voice bordering hoarseness. He stares at me, and I imagine he regrets ever speaking, ever revealing himself. I would. He shakes his head and turns away, licking his busted lips. "Doesn't matter." I make a move and sit back on the couch, eyebrows furrowed, heat in my chest. Stop, Kellyn, stop.

No, I need to know. What's going on in my city? What's going to happen to me, to Steve? Why is he here, why is he killing off crime rings and gangs? Why me? Why did you come to me?

I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know, or try to help or get into any of this. I should be grateful I'm not the person he took down tonight, be content knowing bad people are dead. My body is tired and cranky, but I fight to stay up, to gauge this person in my apartment. "Why are you going after Shtolen?" I stare at his profile, the jagged edges of his face, the prominent bridge of his nose, the sharp jut of his adam's apple and brow ridge. _Superciliary arches._ I pull back a little when he turns to me, and I realize I was admiring him, humanizing him. This soldier, this killing machine is two feet from me, and I'm not scared! I'm inching closer to a wild animal, and suddenly I can't recall why it's dangerous.

His eyes are searching me, scanning my face and hair. Instead of shrinking further back I find myself timidly still, staring. He breathes and I feel my neck extend forward, attentive. "It doesn't matter why I'm here, alright?" He looks away, then back, and each time he looks surprised to see me, as if I'd just appeared. "There's pieces of shit in this town that don't answer to the law. They, they don't care about what they have to do or who they have to kill so they can get what they want. They got people in the force, people making sure they never have to pay for what they've done."

He spits the words, brows locked, hands gripping each other. "They think they can get away with it. They can't. Not anymore." He grabs the glass of water I'd set next to him and takes a gulp, grimacing slightly. He doesn't seem used to the taste. "Why you, then? Why are you the one doing this?" I ask, breath calm, enervation making me appear tranquil. He looks to me, the shadow of his hairline stretching into his stubble. "Cause I'm the only one who will." I can see the glossiness of his eyes. We're both tired. So tired.

"I'm the only goddamn one who's willing to do anything about it. I'm the one who makes sure they get what's coming to them, make sure they won't hurt anyone else." His closing strikes a chord, and I make a sharp sound when I breathe in. Steve. Steve won't get hurt. Mike, Jeanie, Nina, they'll be okay, they'll be alright. Me. I don't have to be afraid. I only realize they're not my words when I see his mouth moving. _He_ said that. I don't have to be afraid anymore. He's still looking at me but I've turned my head, looking past him to the window, to the broken buildings and lambent streetlights.

I imagine twenty four years, each one worse than the last. I imagine crying when our power went out, terrified of the night. I imagine looking into an alleyway like it was the barrel of a gun, ready to take my life. I believed I would get stolen away, bought, sold for parts. I remember wanting nothing but to survive, just to make it to tomorrow, living in fear. It's the same now as it was back then. Is there a chance, just a gamble, that I won't have to anymore? That there's someone on my side, fixing this?

I can smell the metallic blood coming from Meatpacking now, flowing into the storm drains, and I think 'that might be the only way.' This isn't right, none of this is right, but it's necessary. _That's_ why he's here. To do what no one else would. A flash of red crosses my tired mind, a flag, an eagle and anchor and earth, a diehard commitment to protect. _Semper fid-_

I flinch back to reality when I feel his finger skim my jaw when he brushes a piece of hair across my shoulder. I face him again, flushed and wide-eyed. His hand's still there, next to my face, unmoving. What are you doing? His eyebrows are relaxed, the haze of his eyes lit up in the light of the window. I have to fight, really fight the urge to lean in, to be touched. His pinky taps the top of my shoulder and I become alert again, blood hastening through my veins. _Cutis anserina: goosebumps._ The clichéd tropes make sense now; I can feel the pull, the drawing in. We've inched closer, his arm alongside the spine of the couch, hand close to my neck. I can smell something, coffee, black coffee.


	13. Psychology: Sensation and Perception

I close my eyes and come to my senses full force, rising from the couch and stepping back, light headed. Somehow the voice is freed, shouting, fire-alarm loud. 'Stop! Danger! Run!' The rebellion against caution is over. I touch my neck, fiery hot. Frank's staring up at me, dazed, and I feel small again, sighing, shrinking back.

After a staccato blink I look at the floor, eyes darting, too ashamed to face him. "I know you won't, but just in case you decide to rest for a while I'll get you a pillow." I turn and start towards the bedroom, but stop when I hear a quick and heavy shuffle from behind. I spin and see he's risen, taken three rushed strides towards me, but stopped just a step away as if I'd been inside a glass case; unreachable, off-limits.

The sense of his proximity drives a wave of electricity up my back and causes the lilac flesh of my nipples to indurate. His eyes look black now, shadows cast over his face like a skull. _Fenestrae; synapsid._ The pads of my feet swell with sweat and my leg muscles stiffen. This isn't fear, no, something different. I'm not afraid. The voice has disappeared, my heartbeat's steady. 'Come here.'

I'm in a position that I can step back, evacuate, close the door and lock it and hope God or The Devil comes to my rescue… or I could step forward. Closer, closer. He doesn't move, he's not raising a hand to come upon me. He only stares down, giant and looming, breath heavy like his back can't handle the vertical locus anymore. 'Move.' In my defense I reason that I moved forward just so I could help him stand, but then my arms reach up to wrap around his neck and he leans into me, then I'm pulled in instead of pulling him up and we're locked there like a tight seam, a confusion of heavy exhales and eager hands.

Too quickly he sobers and slaps an outstretched palm on my sternum with a hollow 'thud,' and we break, evenly shocked. What have you done? Two of his fingers sit on my collarbone, moving against the skin when I breathe, huffing. We pause, and I reason again that he's pushing me away, retreating, telling me to lock the door and slipping back into the night and its evils.

But then I feel his fingers curl, and his hand grips in a tight fist around my shirt and pulls me back in, fixing the other at the nape of my skull. _Occipitalis; bridges median Nuchal Crest._

I'm completely terrified and totally unafraid, shocks of exhilaration pulsing through me. He takes us back a step and presses me into my doorframe, pelvises aligning. I'm gentle in comparison to him, virginal. I stroke instead of grab, nip instead of bite, I can't hold back moaning into him and the way we're acting towards each other is driving the other one crazy. The meat of his palms push against my flesh into my bottom rib, and I'm wet instantly, all decisions made _. '_ Goddamn', I think, 'nothing's felt this good in a long time.' No, nothing had felt good at all before right now.

It feels so good that I don't notice him sling his shirt off of his mauled chest until my hands feels the feverish skin, soft and then rough and soft again. He's leading me forward or backwards, into my bedroom, and the sounds of his heavy boots thudding on the floorboards is the only thing that brings me up to speed, completely hypnotized by his hands, his mouth, eager and careful. I don't think I can breathe; waves of endorphins flush my system, muscles tight and then lax. _Hypoxia._

He lifts my shirt up over my head and I hear the sharpness in his breath; the stitches are pulling. Somehow my nervous hands get his belt off, and when he lays me down I can hear the crinkling of my notes and books under us before his arms sweep them off the bed in broad, frantic strokes. I see him grab the textbook and gingerly drop it before coming back to me, eyes on my body, skin sticking together, mouth on breasts, rough hands on doughy-soft thighs, fingers curled at my cervix. _Dopamine, Serotonin, Ocytocin._

Before I can pull him inside me I feel him groan against my mouth, eyes shut tight. He looks down and gulps for air, and I can feel a trickle of warm blood on his back. "Stop, stop." I whisper, gaining his eyes one more time, and we pause. I can see his mind's slowed down and he can see mine is buzzing behind my pupils. My wet fingers trail from his lats, under his armpit to the curled hairs dusting his pectoral. Brazen, and for the first time, my fingers splay and I press against him, rising up from the mattress and curling over his body _._

He looks almost surprised, how slowly I lift atop him with my hands over his, how much give is in the flesh of my inner thighs, how my hands press against his chest with the tips of my fingers. His hands, though, they hold onto me like I might vanish, firm and tight. I try to remember the word for that muscle, the letters right in front of me, but I can't. The fervor makes me forget it all, and instead I repeat his name, the only word I can remember; first silently, then in a great release.My other hand pushes against the wall behind the bed to steady me, and he guides my hips back and forth like oars, fingers gripping, prehensile.

This wasn't planned, but based on the way we're moving and the sounds we're making I'd say this was a surprise and long overdue. His hands slide up my back and touch the ends of my hair, rubbing them between his fingers.

When I hear him climb towards orgasm I speed up, come down on him harder, sigh louder, and when I feel him twitching inside me I keep going; his throaty moans bounce off the walls, taking seconds at a time to fade. I silently apologize to my neighbors. My mind is coming back to speed, and words pool around me in a frenzy. _Corpus cavernosum, myoclonus, testosterone, Frank, frank, frankfrankfrankfrank._

His hands are still stuck to my waist, pinching a few hairs between his knuckles. His thumbs press into my abdomen and I can feel the adrenaline drain from me, our breaths evening out.

I'm at a loss of what to do. Wipe him off coldly? Make post-coital eggs and anchovies? Offer a shower, play cute, put his shirt on, do a dance? I find my answer in the dried blood under my fingernails and the mindless stroking of one of his scars.

"Here," I dismount and sit beside him, knees forward. He watches me as I prod his stitches to make sure they didn't rip. "You know most people just spoon afterwards." He mentions coolly, and the rush of endorphins aid in the ensuing laughter. "Most people don't get sewed up beforehand." When I bend to grab my shirtand come back to him his hands are already enclosing me. I feel like I should apologize for the quality of my sheets, my bed, my air conditioning, but I don't want to, I don't really care. Every cell is warm, every muscle slack, coffee lacing my skin. He's got another lock of my hair in his fingers, stroking it with his thumb.

"I was being serious back there. You need rest." I say softly, and when he doesn't reply I feel the sunken feeling reemerge, no hormones left to keep me above it; the belief that this was a mistake, that I was wanted solely for information, that he was going to leave and that I'd have to let him. He isn't here forme. He's here to cleanse the city, purge it. I have the shop and the books and Steve, and he has…punishment. Still silence; he isn't going to say anything is he? 'What have you _done_?' I dismount the endorphin high and glance up, just to see if he'd look me in the eyes.

He couldn't. They seemed to be barely shut, face relaxed, breathing deep and untroubled. His skin's cleaner now, stubble peppering his jawline, and he looks like he's finally fallen asleep after a nightmare. The fatigue and blood loss and sex reduced his energy to smithereens, and protest was no longer an option. I can't fight it either, and I wait until after I turn the light off to smile, trying to trace his face in the darkness until I'm taken over completely.

 **PERRY STREET, 2** **nd** **FLOOR**

She's not scared, that's a start. That is until she sees the blood. I tried to stand up but my damn legs were like mush, and she had to walk me to the couch, tiny hands heaving me along. My back was on fire, deep deep pain running up to my neck. She's freaking out, hands on my face and eyes and ears. She stops when she sees my back, and I can feel her shake a little. She keeps saying my name though, every time she speaks she's calling out, running around and grabbing things. She takes my shirt off all gentle, fingers around my ears so they don't catch, hands moving in a blur.

When I open my eyes there's a needle in my arm, and she's behind me with bandages, white wrappers all over the floor. I can feel the first stitch slide through, second, third. She's got her TV on and I bet I know what's airing next. Her hands move quickly, little presses and pulls, precise. She laughs when I thank her, and if I turn a little I can see her face, concentrated, buried in hair. When she's done she pulls the line out of my arm and I see that it was connected to her, coming out with a 'yank.'

She comes at me so quick that I'm frozen when she cups my face in her hands, cool and smooth, staring at me real close, specks crinkling across her nose. She pulls away just as I reach out, grabbing bandages and wipes and peroxide and sitting close, taking my arm and cleaning it. She stops when she sees the scars; her finger traces one and I can hear her swallow, lips flat. "You look like this after every fight?" She says, squeezing the pus out of a cut on my arm, wiping it over and over.

She's a smartass, but I have to smile, distract from the sizzling burn in my back. She's more careful than I am, exact, sure as shit gentler. She sticks crunchy white bandages all up and down my arms, and she has to lean close to clean out a hole on my shoulder. I usually leave those alone, but I don't say anything, and when she's bent down I can see the small of her back, smell the soap in her hair. I catch sight of the food she set out for me and look at the cabinet in her kitchen, totally empty. When was the last time she ate?

I can feel her hair tickle the crook of my elbow and I glance back down, staring at the sandy locks that hide her face. Sandy, right? That's how they describe it? I lift a hand and reach out, thinking it's my imagination, taking a piece in my hand; light and thin, feathery. I pull and it springs back, curling around my finger. Her head lifts up, watching me all wide-eyed, quiet, like she's not even breathing.

I glance around the room, greyish-yellowish walls. The TV's ancient, barely making any noise, bookcase in the corner, shitty view from the window. I backtrack to the shelves, lined with rows on rows of books, big blocky letters and shapes. 'Beginner's Calculus,' 'Advanced Organic Chemistry.' She's gotta be in college. If I lean far enough I can see the blue edge of her fish book on top of her bed. She says they're a gift. Jesus Christ, who gives fucking textbooks as a gift? One of the covers is bright orange, just like our old bedtime story.

I flip the one in front of me open and tap my finger on a random spot. Meso-whatever. I say it out loud and she smiles. Big eyes, green. Who has eyes like that? In a second she recites it, word for word, right off of the page. I stare, I have to, and this time she doesn't budge, not one bit.

She leaves for a second and I try to stand, thinking it's time to go, time to get back to work. I think I can make the walk. If anyone saw me up here she'd be in for it. I need to leave, need to get back to the garage, get a bigger gun, get to the bar where the bikers are staying. Just as I'm about to get up she rounds the corner, a lump of white in her hands. She doesn't look at me till she reaches the couch, arm extended, a bunched up shirt in her fingers, clean socks too.

She's not skittish, not staying close to the bat in the corner, not keeping a distance. She asks me where I'm from, and when I look up she's right in front of me, lit up in the TV screen; they're playing my song, but she doesn't even flinch. Instead she sits down and makes a joke, grinning, asks me if I wanted to cook Sicilian food when I came to the shop, and it feels so normal, so casual that I don't catch myself, I almost say their names.

She asks me what I enlisted in, and I guess I slipped up more than once, but it doesn't stop there; her questions dig deeper, and I can't even tell until she's sitting next to me, asking me _why._ She won't give, pressing harder and harder, and I tell her it doesn't matter but it's not enough, and then I crack, I fucking crack, facing the green glare of her eyes. I can't look at her for very long, it's like staring right into the sun.

Finally she quiets down, and I can hear her breathe, staring out at the city. "You don't need to be afraid of them anymore. They can't hurt you." The second time's on purpose, my hand stretched out, touching a string of white-gold hair, just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. She watches me closely and I'm not sure what to do next, what's right. I don't remember the last time wanted to do what was right.

I need to pull away, need to go, leave and stop coming back. _Maria, Maria, Lisa and Frank, LisaandFrankMaria._ Think about your family. Think about what they deserve. I repeat their names in my head, jumbled into single words, gargling at the back of my throat, numb in my mouth.

But.

But she's right there, right in front of me with those eyes like the traffic light on 36th, hair like Afghani sand, head filled to the brim…and I just want her to look at me like I'm _me_ , to not be afraid of _me_.

She moves so slow that I can barely tell she's getting closer, hair brushing up my arm. _Kellyn. Kelly and Lynn so they named me Kellyn. KellynKellynKellyn._ Kellyn.

I reach out and move to touch her, but when I blink she's up, backed away, eyes on the floor and telling me to rest, that knee bobbing back and forth. She turns around and I jump, but I have to stop before I reach her, I have to stop. She wants me to leave. I need to go, I need to go, I need to fix this, I can't stop until I fix this. My knees lock and she glances down, watching. What are you thinking? What do you want?

She's slow, half-lidded and calm; that's how she catches me off guard when she slips forward, and the moment her hands touch me I have to pull her in, I have to, feel the back of her arms and the curve of her spine and grab a fistful of creamy hair. Her chest presses into me, excited.

I step back, push her away. I didn't just imagine that. Her eyes are wide now, panting, and I almost do it, I almost back away, leave for good. I can feel her lungs in my palm, little rabbit heartbeat, and now all I hear is her name in my head, over and over and over, and I want to beg like a dog for her to say mine, just one more time.

I pull her back to me and I have to remind myself to be tender when I press her into the wall, tiny wrists in my hand, breath in my ear, lip on my jaw. I'm afraid I might hurt her, how much I'd hate myself if I did. She's killing me, but it's alright; I was already dead once. I get my shirt off somehow and lift her high like my back's good as new.

I lay her down and then her shirt's over her head, hair tossing around, eyes on me on her. She takes me, guides me to her hips, and I try to keep my vision steady, chest burning like hellfire. Please, please.

She stops me, cooing, fingertips red with my blood, and she pushes up, rolling me over and climbing on top, pink thighs on my hipbones, the ends of her hair sweeping over my chest. _Kellyn, Kellyn, fuck, kellynkellynkellynkellyn._

She arches her back, hands pressed into me, and I have to hold tight, just so I know she's real, just so I can make sure she's still here. I hear her say my name, shaky and raw, and that's all it takes. Suddenly I'm blind and deaf, specks clouding my vision, my own voice in my ear, and she's panting against me, cheeks all rosy.

She pulls close, curling around to check my back, rubbing the stitches and tears. _Kellyn._ I need to go now, I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't want this. But I hear her voice again, hear her laugh; it shuts my head up, gives me amnesia. When my arms wrap around her she comes real close, messy hair all over me, in my hand. I close my eyes just for a second, just to think, and when her fingers start tracing something on my arm I'm out cold.


	14. Pathologic Basis of Disease

He's gone by the time I'm up. I remember waking sometime during the night, automatically, sweaty-sore, and the first thing I touched was his hand, outstretched next to my head. I was only awake for a few seconds, lazy fingers tracing the line under his pinky. _Curve of Mercury._ The next time I open my eyes the sun's blaring orange through my eyelids, and when I turn over I'm alone, wrinkled sheets on the other side of the bed.

I get up and review the apartment, hands on my thighs and stomach, trying to recall all of the details. The only trace of him is a reddish-brown stain on the couch cushion. I put on clothes, wetting my face and hair. I look healthier, or maybe I'm just thinking that.

I shove Steve's last check in my mailslot and walk out into the heat, sunlight glittering in the puddles on the sidewalk. When I'm crossing over Greenwich a street vendor stops me, his arm outstretched with two bagels in his hand, shaking them in my face. He's saying something in Greek and I retract a little, but still he holds them out, pale and oozing cream cheese. When I take them from his hands he nods a few times and turns back to his cart, and I'm stuck holding two hot rounds of bread. I don't question it like I should, and take a giant bite, inhaling both of them before I reach the store.

I don't question where he went. I don't feel an achy loneliness, the ghost of his touch. I run the shop, tend to a small herd of customers, go home and watch the news; that's how I know he's still alive. When the Ivy League news reporter says that a bar known for housing the Dogs of Hell was blown to shit I lean in close, ogling the cloudy pixels on the screen. It's him. He wasn't lying; he was cleaning the Kitchen out, clearing the city of its cads.

I do the routine for a week, going to the store, then home, then news. I only think about him when I lie down in bed, peeking out of the window at the streetlights and brick edifices. I think about how I want to thank him, how I believe him now. I don't have to be afraid. I go to bed and sleep longer, walk home slower. That's what makes me feel healthy, like a real person. Each day I feel a little better. I joke with my shippers and find I'm almost funny. I smile at the touristy housewives even when they ask me to cut a lobster for them. And when I come home to find Steve's check's been mailed back to me I don't panic, not the usual running to the phone booth and rambling frantically to a nurse.

Instead I step back out into the street and start walking, bold in the face of a sunset, less and less afraid of the oncoming dark. When I'm waiting to cross at 21st I feel a tap at my ankle followed by an "Oh! My apologies." I look down and see a white and red rod, long and thin, attached at the wrist to a hand, and then an arm, and then a face looking forward, crimson glasses lighting his cheeks up in the receding sun. The cane taps the concrete a few times and I shake my head before realizing I need to make noise. "You're fine. Strong ankles." I say, and he chuckles, eyes pointed forwards. "Good quality to have. I'd say it's essential to living."

His joke's not that funny, but I smile, and when he waves a taxi slows next to him. After he pulls the door open he pauses and turns back to me. "Care to share a ride?" I can feel the nerves try to bundle together, to make me anxious, but I just shake my head, chiding my heartbeat. "No thanks, I'm going to Metro General." He smiles, the stubble on his chin moving with his lips. "You're on the way. My treat." When I dither on the curb he rolls the cane into a small handle and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. "Don't want to work those ankles too hard, right?" The joke's not as lame now, and I hesitantly step forward and slide in. Come on, he's blind.

When he bends to get inside he groans, clutching his side under his coat. He tells the driver to go to the hospital and I relax a little, looking at him from across the backseat. After a silence he moves his neck slightly, semi-facing me. "Open heart surgery?" He says, and my eyebrows knit together. "What?" He grins and shakes his head. His hand's still inside his shirt, gripping his ribs. _From Latin "costae." Verae & Spuriae._

"I'm trying to guess why you're going to the hospital. Did you swallow a battery? Tried to fix the garbage disposal on your own? Bitten by rabid subway mice?" I laugh and so does he, and I feel bad for missing out on this for so long. "Yeah, nothing that spectacular. I, uh, I'm picking my uncle up." He draws out a nod and smiles; I squint a little, reconsidering my choice to reveal anything. But he stays on his side of the car and keeps his hand on the window sill. I feel the awkwardness stretch out, and I open my mouth, testing the water with this stranger.

"You headed to work?" He shakes his head, a placid smile resting across his cheeks. "I hope not. I just got off, but I guess work can find me anytime of the day." "Where do you work?" He reaches up and finds the grab handle, wrapping his fingers tight around it. "I'm a lawyer. I've got a little firm on 19th." I nod, inspecting his coat and trousers. Kind of humble for lawyer garb, but he's nice. Lawyers aren't usually nice.

I can see the tall grey building stretching up into the orangey-purple clouds, and when the car slows he straightens up. After I open the door I pause and turn back to him. "Thanks, um…" He beams and juts out a hand, warm in mine. "Matthew." I nod and remind myself he can't see me. "Kellyn." I step out into the damp air again, and before the door shuts I hear him call out "get home safe!"

The waiting room's the exact same—panicked phone conversations, crying babies, bloody hands holding bloody rags. When I get to the chemo wing I see Claire wheeling someone out of the renovated ER and stopping when she sees me, passing the patient off and pacing to the counter. "Kellyn, hi." Her face is concerned, not the somber smile I'm used to. I regard her with caution, my mind flashing to the pictures from Shtolen's men. When she reaches out to touch my arm I freeze. Claire's never touched me.

"Hey. I'm here to pick up Steve. My last check got sent back, does that mean his sessions are over?" I figure I overestimated the payments, tripped up on the math, but when Claire's hand comes up to her forehead I feel a chink in my confidence. "Oh, Kellyn. Um, come here." She walks me away from the chemo lobby and to an elevator. When we step inside she looks to me, eyes crinkled. "Did anyone call you?" I shake my head, trying to gauge her expression. "No, I don't have a phone. Why? Is he okay?" I can feel us moving down, deep into the nadirs of the hospital.

When the door opens Claire stares at me, holding her elbows, biting her lip. We walk into a too-bright hallway and she stops me just outside of a glass door, facing me, and suddenly I'm looking for something to protect myself with, my blood driving in and out of my heart with force. She looks at my face and shakes her head, speaking in nurse's words. "Kellyn, I'm so sorry…" She starts to trail off and I peek inside of the glass. A wall is lined with small metal doors, stacked one on top of the other, side by side in a silver grid. Oh. My shoulders drop and the tears are already clouding my eyes. _Lacrimal apparatus._ "We don't know what happened. He was doing just fine a few days befo—"

"How?" Her mouth hangs agape, teeth showing, and after a pause she walks to the door, scanning it open. She leads me to the wall, to a handle near the ground with a blocky 'CONDON S.' written in dry-erase. Dry-erase, removable, I want to scream. "The autopsy results are still pending. None of this will make sense, but the symptoms are pointing to some kind of Mercury poisoning. We won't know anything for sure until the tests are completed."

My hands tremble when she opens the door, reaching for a grey handle and pulling outwards. Steve, covered in a white cloth, too-clean, lifeless. "Can I just, can I have—" I'm speaking in watery fragments, and when I turn her shadow is already on the other side of the glass door.

I bend at the knees and reach for the top of the sheet, hands shaking viciously. I only pull it back just enough to see the side of his head and neck, white-green, bald, dull. There's a small hole just under his ear, a puncture wound. _Hypodermic needle, 20 gauge._ I choke and then sob; I'm too scared to look at his body, too rickety to touch him. I lay my head in my hands and weep, collapsed next to the wall. Hairless, colorless, cold, Steve.

We were going to leave today. I was going to buy him real food and wash his clothes and tell him things were getting better. I believed we were safe, that we were being protected. I was so stupid, so stupid to think one person could change all of this.

My eyes are swollen, lips fat and rubbery. "Steve." I say his name aloud, already foreign, and I begin to wail, unremorsefully pathetic. I'm relaying the symptoms, the pain he went through, the neurotoxins that ravaged his brain, the hope I had just seconds ago, torn to shreds at my feet. _Hydrargyria: methylmercury, dimethylmercury._

Mercury: I know exactly why it was Mercury. I know who did this. I know who took my life from me, who took Steve away, who I want to pay. The wails begin to morph into growls, heaving and irate. My eyes open and I see the lumpy white sheet in front of me when I stand, all sentiments replaced with ire. I turn towards the door and catch a glimmer of silver next to me; a tray, pathologist's tools. My breath is heaving through my nostrils, eyes red, and I grab a long scalpel as I walk to the door, shoving it up my sleeve. I disregard Claire and walk upstairs, through the halls, out the lobby and into the murky streets.

My mind isn't shuttling thoughts back and forth, no, I can only think of my boiling skin and grinding teeth, the laser-sharp edge of the scalpel against my wrist, and the pulsating red light ahead of me. _Viper_ stretches out into the street, hazy and loud, and when I'm on its block I shed my jacket, tossing it behind a dumpster and ruffling my hair. I pull my tank loose and low, stepping into the thin line outside of the doors. When I get to the bouncer I give a lazy stare, a facsimile of sexiness, and after he inspects me I'm showed in, smoke drifting above the corpus of bodies that push into me. My hand is slick with sweat, gripping and regripping the weapon when I cut through the stirring crowd.

I can see a door in the back, covered by a guard, his suit pressed and damp. That's where I need to go, where I'm being pulled. I have to distract him. I walk to the bar and grab a deserted cocktail before finding the largest, loudest man in the crowd and sneaking to him, throwing it in his face and skittering back into the blurry mass. He roars and shoves, making a scene, and when the sentry moves to restrain him I slip behind his clammy back and into the hallway.

The lights are dim, red-hot, and I feel like I'm really in Hell; the walls dark, the lights crimson, my body rocky and alert. I feel the scalpel slide in my palm, and I say his name once in my head. Where are you hiding? Where are you fucking hiding? I'm not thinking about the danger, the fear, the stupidity. I'm only thinking about my rage, fiery inside of me, ready to spill out at the belly.

I can see a door, far at the end of the hall, a moving white light glowing underneath it, voices on the other side, and my feet clamber, taking silent steps until I feel a harsh grip on the inside of my arm, thrusting me sideways and spinning me backwards, a forearm wrapping across my sternum, a hand clasping at my neck. "Shhhhh."

In an instant my hands are up, scratching, clawing, cutting, and my fingernail catches on something, a chunk of marbled skin, a scar. My heartbeat quickens and my mind searches rapidly for the familiarity, the feeling, the memory of tracing it over and over until I fell asleep.

"Frank?!" I yank away and turn to face him, taking a step back. Even in the light I can see his face is beaten; ripped skin and bruises. He looks down at me, eyebrows cast low, eyes black like the rest of him. "What the hell are you doing?" He asks lowly, his teeth covered in a slimy layer of blood. I can see a massive assault rifle hangs in his hand and I take another step away, my heart racing. The anger's still bubbling in my throat, and I shake my head, turning to walk back to the door. "It doesn't matter." It does matter, but I don't want to speak to him. This isn't _his_ job. They didn't hurt something _he_ loves.

His hand finds me again and pulls, yanking me back to face his eyes. "You're gonna get yourself killed, Kellyn. What, you think you're gonna take em' all down with a fucking pocket knife?" He holds the scalpel in his hand; I didn't even realize he'd taken it from me. The voice of reason fades back into earshot, masked in his voice. When I'm silent he stares at me, and slowly my anger turns childish, unreasonable. "You don't know what he did." I say lowly, and the fury begins to mix with grief, muddled and heavy. His head moves back a little, eyes widening and squinting, mouth still.

After a pause he looks down the hall both ways, gun clacking in his hands. "I'm getting you out of here. There's a whole squad behind those doors." The way he's talking is different, like he's prepping me, like a soldier. "Stay behind me and don't make any noise." His hand finds mine, clutching, and I feel him lead me away, down the hall, through a passageway. When we step into another hallway I feel my breath leave me, eyes snapped wide. It's littered with bodies, fresh, gunned down. Frank's stoic ahead of me, holding the rifle up. We step over an arm, a leg, into a dark, syrupy puddle. I see Cheech and Chong, their shiny hair soaked in blood, faces holey and mauled.

His hand holds tighter when I start to hyperventilate; all of my anger is gone, marrow-deep fear supplanting it. I hear voices, yelling, and in an instant he steps sideways, folding me behind him, a hand on my ribs, the other holding the gun vertical. What have you done? What have I done?! My face is buried in his collar, and I can feel my heartbeat hammer into his jacket. He whispers something, muttering nonsense about coins: pennies and dimes.

Feet are thumping down the hall, and before I'm ready he jumps forwards, striking with the hilt of his gun, and gunshots light up the hallway, viscera spraying the walls. When I peek out I can see him, breaking bones, stabbing, shooting their faces, chests, necks; he tears them down one by one, and I realize now that what I felt was just a taste, that this man is living in the wake of rage, devoted to his vendetta.

I don't scream, I only crouch, holding the gap in the hallway, hearing grunts and roars and screams, deafening gunfire blast back and forth. _Sulfur, charcoal, saltpeter._ The metallic smell of blood and gunpowder makes me feint, and I'm thrust to my feet when Frank reappears. We reach for each other, breaking into a sprint when he shoots back into the hallway, leading us out into an alley. "Come on!"

I barely hear him, but when we start running I know what to do, leaping to keep up with his legs, breath wheezing, my heart too loud to hear the shouts and gunshots. When we stop at an intersection I see him look in all directions, neck twisting wildly, lungs heaving. Is he lost? I see the intersection on the streetsign: 5th and 8th. Without hesitation now I grab his hand, rough in mine, and pull. "This way." He looks down at me but doesn't argue. I'd think he trusts my knowledge by now, regardless of my judgement.

We cut through backways and alleys, staying the shadows, and he stops us when we get to an opening, looking out into the street. We've run for almost forty five minutes, exhausted and sweaty. He puts the gun behind some garbage cans and leads me into the street, harsh yellow lights exposing us. There's a diner on the side of the road, neon 50's signs wrapping around the windows; 'Open 24 Hours!'

"Come here," he says, gentler now, and I walk next to him, arm against his, shaken. That's twice now that I should have died, twice that I didn't.


	15. Essentials of Anthropology

**I made a blog for this story. Mostly aesthetics, visuals and whatnot. Check it out if you like that sort of stuff. ( /blog/nyc-neighborhood)**

My shirt smells like seafood and sweat, mixing grossly with the scent of meat and grease. The diner's empty sans us and two bushed waitresses out front, flipping through magazines, painting nails. The shiny plastic clock above a pie dish reads 1:17, and I feel a tinge of cold, gluing my arms to my sides. I left my jacket behind the dumpster. Jesus, what was I thinking? It's probably gone forever, something else I won't get back.

Frank watches me, studying, and after a long inhale he stands, stepping to my side of the table and removing his coat, draping it over my prickly shoulders. It's cool, damp from the run, heavy and tattered at the seams. "You're in shock." He says monotonously, sitting again and signaling the waitress. "I know." I riposte, timidly reaching up and tugging the sides closer to me. A thin woman approaches us, wrinkly and beaming. "What can I getcha?" She asks, holding a blue notepad in her hands like she needs it. Frank looks up at her with a smirk, arms folded over the table. "Black coffee, miss. And whatever she wants." He says politely, charming. Fuck him.

The waitress grins and turns to me. "And what would you like sweetheart?" I clutch the jacket tight and shake my head a little, casting my eyes onto the laminate of the tabletop. She pauses, and Frank lifts his head to her, speaking amiably. "Give us a minute." His nose scrunches, and she smiles, stuffing the notepad in her apron and strolling back to the counter. _Nasalis muscle; transverse, alar._

I'm fighting to avoid his eyes almost as hard as he's fighting to meet mine. "You wanna tell me why you thought that was such a good idea back there?" He almost sounds like a father, castigating me. I shake my head, hair flicking in and out of my eyes. He makes a good point, that's why I don't speak; I have no defense. I walked into that lion's den with an inch-long blade and blind rage. I would have, should have died.

Maybe that's what I wanted, to just be done with Shtolen's formalities: the constant fear, the threats, the terrorization. Maybe I was just so worn-out from having my hope torn from me that I was ready to go. Maybe I was tired of fantasizing a better life, tired of living this shitty one.

I am tired. I'm tired of believing in him, in me; both of us are lying to ourselves. This city doesn't have a chance and neither do I. It's almost comforting, the familiarity of futility; like hearing an old favorite song.

"I told you it didn't matter." I drone, and he makes a drawing sound before replying. "Seemed to matter enough that you'd risk your skin. You really thought that butterknife could take them down?" He's almost laughing at me, and it makes me fume, biting the inside of my cheek. I fidget in the rubbery booth, my hands gripping each other tight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did I ever open my mouth? Why did I ever try to stop this?

"I guess that's why you're better at this than I am." I stab, hoping he'll get up, leave me; that I can go home and try to erase all of this, to pretend I never knew anything, to pretend that _I_ wasn't what got Steve killed. I look down and squeeze my eyes shut. Don't you dare cry.

His fingers drum against the table and he chuckles "I am," he starts, and I want to punch him in the teeth. "That's why I know that look." I meet his eyes for the first time, and they aren't disappointed, or superior or upset. He looks at me with some foreign sincerity, and I feel the resentment wane.

"That look when someone loses everything, when it's taken right out of their hands. You don't care what happens to you; you just, you want someone to pay." The jacket is warmer now, and I can feel my muscles start to unwind. His expression is blank, the bruises and cuts blending with the lines of his face. Now I'm staring, scanning his eyes and mouth and hands. What happened to you? What did you lose?

The waitress reappears, a steaming mug in her hands. He thanks her, taking a gulp and squinting, heedless to the temperature. She turns back to me and I can feel Frank watching. "Figured out what you want yet?" I pause, ready to decline again, but my stomach aches beneath my abs and I try to be courteous. _Alimentary canal._ "Just bring me whatever's hot." I murmur, and she nods slowly, pivoting away from us.

When I look up he's smiling at me, and I feel so little, so weak and senseless. What do you want? He takes large swigs of coffee at a time, and I feel that pull, the magnetism, the false sense of security. 'Don't do it,' I'm thinking. 'Don't let it fool you.' But really, really, what do I have left to lose? When has he hurt me? What would happen if I let him?

"When my sister and I were kids," I start, taking a gulp of air, "Steve took us on the ferry to Liberty Island. He showed us all the old oyster beds, let us climb up the statue all the way to the crown, look out at New York… he had us convinced she was some kind of giant, protecting the city." Frank watches me and I can't bear to look at him, my face red-hot. "He never stopped telling us we'd be okay; never told us we weren't safe in this town." I imagine that woman, green and gold, holding laws in her hands that my uncle believed in, that I thought would defend us. _Tabula ansata._

"He was the last thing I had left." It's silent for a second, empty, and when Frank opens his mouth there are plates and mugs in front of us. "Here you go!" The waitress chirps, pushing a sandwich towards me, stuck with toothpicks and oozing ketchup. I stare down at it, confused. It's almost repelling, how easy it is, how I could just eat, just talk, take a breath and look at him. But it's not, I'm convinced. It can't be, it never is. The safety is temporary, the moment is fleeting.

He takes the mugs and sips, eyeing me and the food. "Come on, when's the last time you had a decent meal?" He asks, nodding down at the plate, and I clench my teeth. "Why are you doing this, Frank? Why'd you save me, why do you…why do you care? I'm not part of your _mission_. I don't know anything else, I don't have any information left."

I feel the heavy breaths droop in my lungs, hands dry and cold, fingering the teeth of the zippers. His eyes are lit up in the pink and blue neon on the window, fingers twitching against the mug.

"What do you want from me?" the words come out desperately, broken. My knee bobs slowly under the table, the leather on my boots squeaking. He takes a hand and runs it through his hair, scratching the back of his head, looking at the passing cars. I hear a screech and see his fingers are pushing the plate further towards me. "I want you to eat."

My breath comes out rickety, and I almost laugh. Slowly I lift my shaky hands and reach towards the sandwich, crunchy under my fingers. I take the first bite and chew, my mouth flooding immediately. I'm starving. We sit in silence for a few minutes as he empties four cups of coffee. "Coffee's good here. I'll have to come back." He says. The smell makes me calm, tart and rich; it reminds me of what it felt like to be touched, to be safe. I covet that feeling, lost in the past.

I grab a napkin and polish my fingers, smothered in red and yellow. When I look up his eyes are wandering, searching the streets. "Thank you." I say, my throat slick with butter. He looks back to me, glancing at the dish. "Good?" He says, and I shut my eyes, rolling them underneath the lids. _Levator palpebrae._ "I wasn't talking about the sandwich." I answer, and he smiles, shaking his head. "Eh, I wouldn't give them the satisfaction." This time I smile, taking a long huff of air.

I pause mid-breath, squinting back at him, my eyebrows rutted and tight. "What did you say back there, before the firing started?" He looks to me, the black of his eyes dilating. _Pupillary response._ "The thing about pennies, dimes. What was that?" His mouth closes, fingers tight around the porcelain, staring into the steam. He sets the mugs down and brings his hand to his elbow, arms crossed. "It's nothing, it's—" His eyes meet mine for a second and he freezes.

I can see the wheels turning, cranks whirring and churning inside his head. Maybe he's like me, reading people, words flying through his head, constantly assessing. Now I'm the one who may be dangerous. I'm the one who's held at a distance. I can see the dimple next to his chin flex, hear the quick intake of air in his nose.

"Just a nursery rhyme, something I read to my kids." I feel my heart swell, my skin flush, and I freeze altogether. He's a father. He has children; somewhere out there he has a family. No, that doesn't sound right. I recall my rage, my grief, the gaping hole of loss in my chest. He had, had children.

Now this makes sense. Now I understand. Now I see where the monster was birthed, where the revenge sprung from. Magically, as if in an instant, Frank is real; the Punisher vanishes before me and I'm left with a man. He's been beaten down and robbed of his life just like me. The anxiety dissipates, slipping onto the floor in a heap, and I feel the pull again, so strong that I almost leap over the empty plate.

My hand reaches across the table, fearless, and he only notices me when my fingertips brush over his knuckles and slide into his palm. He stares down at it and he looks almost frightened, stiff in his seat. I squeeze, and he glances up at me, his eyes scanning my face over and over. We don't speak, and after a few seconds I feel his hand mold with mine.

'Okay,' I think, 'I trust you. Whatever happens, I trust you.' This city, this neighborhood, this diner…nothing around me is safe, but Frank is. Frank is safe. I'm safe with him. I stare at the purple and red blemishes on his jaw, under his eyes, next to his lips. He wanted me to be safe so much so that he rescued me. I don't care why anymore, I don't need to know.

"Will you take me home?" I ask, just above a whisper, and he nods, placing a twenty on the table and standing with me, and we walk sorely back into the fog, grabbing his gun. He lets me wear his jacket when we walk. _Phenethylamine._

It takes an hour, but when we finally reach the building he walks in front of me, looking around corners, and when we get to my apartment he sweeps the rooms, gun at his chest. I walk to my bathroom and turn on the shower, ice cold water just barely warming in my hands. I stand still, letting the water spill over my head, washing the sweat and briny tears into the drain.

I can hear the muffled funk music above me, my neighbor's radio blending in the walls. When I'm finished Frank is still there, sitting on my couch, staring down at his hands. I appear in the doorframe and he stands, wiping his palms on the side of his pants. "I don't think they know where I live." I say quietly, and he nods slowly, staring out of the window, checking the streets.

I look at his leg; I'd noticed it back at the club, the gait, how he puts more weight on the left foot. "What's wrong with your leg?" I ask, stepping closer to him and inspecting his stance. He looks down at me, eyebrows knit tight. "What?" He says, and I bend to look at his knee, placing my hands on the bone, rubbing through the denim. "You're limping. Look." I stand and hold his arms, stepping side to side. He hesitates and mimics me, stepping back and forth. I'm focusing on the pressure he puts on his right foot when I hear him chuckle, and I look up.

He's grinning down at me, and I realize that he can hear the music too, that we're doing a basic two-step together in my living room. I almost laugh, cheeks burning pink, and he kisses me. I almost pull back, surprised and off-guard, but I come close, reaching up to hold his face, and he takes me back to my bed, quiet and slow, and I know that tomorrow will be different, that we'll be thrust back into a war, but I focus on the sound of his voice and the feeling of his hair and it's alright just for now.


End file.
